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  1. #1
    Senior Member avenger's Avatar
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    DHS Changes Rule; Extends Stay For 20,000 Foreign Grads

    DHS Changes Rule; Extends Stay For 20,000 Foreign Grads
    Priyanka Joshi

    http://www.washtech.org/news/labor/disp ... ntent=5231

    April 16, 2008

    The American tech job market is about to get tighter, as a new rule
    Click here to Take Action!from the Department of Homeland Security allowing employers to hire foreign students holding F-1 visas for "Optional Practical Training" for 29 months as opposed to the hitherto 12 months, takes shape.

    The April 4 rule change comes within days of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reporting that since April 1, it has received 163,000 H1B visa applications for the 65,000 available visa slots, not including 20,000 visas reserved for students graduating at U.S. universities.

    The new rule, applicable to students graduating in Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics has received critical attention for not including public opinion on the issue, and the blogosphere has been buzzing on the subject ever since it was announced.

    Ben Worthen, writer for the Wall Street Journal, posted on his business technology blog, "What's striking about the new rule is how it came about." Worthen, referring to the backhanded way the rule was formulated, added, "Instead of releasing a draft and soliciting comments from the public" - the typical process for governmental rule changes - " DHS cited a clause in the Administrative Procedures Act, which is reserved for emergencies, to make the rule effective immediately".

    The invoking of the emergency clause has also earned liberal brickbats from American IT workers stuck in their gritty zeitgeist of rapidly diminishing job opportunities, short term contract only positions, low pay, no health benefits, all made worse by inflation, and the recession- the direst emergencies of their lives for most!

    Microsoft, which has long lobbied Congress for drastically increasing the cap on H1B visas, predictably, lavished praise on DHS. The decision is, "an important step toward ensuring that American companies can continue to hire many of the world's most talented students graduating from U.S. universities," Jack Krumholtz, Microsoft's managing director federal government affairs, said in a statement.

    According to DHS, the rule, "...Responds to the situation in which an F-1 student's status and work authorization expire before he or she can begin employment under the H-1B visa program. The interim final rule addresses this problem by automatically extending the period of stay and work authorization for all F-1 students with pending H-1B petitions. The rule will also implement certain programmatic changes, including allowing students to apply for OPT within 60 days of graduation." In a press release issued on April 4, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said: "This rule will enable businesses to attract and retain highly skilled foreign workers, giving U.S. companies a competitive advantage in the world economy."

    The public is getting edgier with each such announcement from the government and one has to barely skim the comments on the blogs to gauge the street sentiment accurately. A comment from "SPT" on Worther's post says, "BLS reports losing 80,000 jobs through March, layoffs at Motorola, Dell, Yahoo, AMD ... The US is in a recession, Americans are getting laid off, and DHS wants to legislate via executive edict to increase the supply of the US labor pool with foreign workers? This is insane."

    In response to the same post, is a comment that starts off sounding objective enough, but quickly lays bare the street sentiment and sums up an abrasive immigrant viewpoint which many Americans are getting acquainted with the hard way.

    "the Truth" writes, "...Unfortunately globalization has these side effects. ...But life is a race, a fight for survival just like in the jungle. So all you Americans who watch TV for hours every day, maybe brush up on your skills and exercise some self critique. Only the fittest will survive... That applies to everyone. To me, to the Indians, Chinese, Americans and everyone. That is the inconvenient truth."
    Never give up! Never surrender! Never compromise your values!*
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  2. #2
    Senior Member MyAmerica's Avatar
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    Microsoft, which has long lobbied Congress for drastically increasing the cap on H1B visas, predictably, lavished praise on DHS. The decision is, "an important step toward ensuring that American companies can continue to hire many of the world's most talented students graduating from U.S. universities," Jack Krumholtz, Microsoft's managing director federal government affairs, said in a statement.
    Did Jack Krumholtz ever do PR work for Absolut vodka?

    "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
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