Thread: The H-1B Visa Program Mocks Representative Government

A Reader Says The H-1B Visa Program Makes A Mockery Of Representative Government
From: An Endangered American Professional

Judging from the recent activity on the blogs which are operated by the Washington Post, Business Week, and Slashdot, the debate over H-1B visas for foreign professional workers is once again heating up even as Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) composes the new "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" bill in relative secrecy with input from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Unfortunately, many bloggers on both sides of the H-1B issue often get bogged down in ideological rants about the mythical "Free Market" or un-provable assertions about the relative skills and education levels of U.S. and foreign professionals.

In my opinion, the salient issue in the ongoing H-1B debate is the principle of representative government, which is the bedrock upon which the United States was founded. Indeed, without representative government, the United States would never have attained either the widespread economic prosperity or the wonderful civil liberties which have made America the preferred destination for immigrants from all over the globe.

However, in order for the citizens of the United States to have representative government, federal programs that affect the daily lives of citizens must be operated in a transparent manner. Furthermore, elected officials must be accountable to the citizens whose interests they supposedly represent. The H-1B program fails miserably on both counts.

There is little if any transparency in the H-1B program. Ever since its inception in 1990, this program has been characterized by a consistent pattern of concealment, as evidenced by the following:

1) The Department of Labor cannot determine (or will not reveal) exactly how many H-1B visa holders are currently working in the United States.

2) The Department of Labor usually does not list which companies have filed Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) to hire H-1B workers for open positions until long after the LCAs have been filed and the foreign workers have actually been hired. The delay can sometimes be from six to 12 months. This time lag is puzzling, because it exists in spite of an e-filing system (implemented in 2002), which was supposed to speed up the H-1B application and reporting process.

3) The Department of Homeland Security apparently cannot (or will not) determine how many H-1B visa holders have overstayed their visas. This deficiency, whether real or contrived, is inexcusable for an agency that is charged with protecting domestic lives and property from the ongoing threat of foreign terrorism.

4) The attempts (in Congress) to expand the H-1B program usually come at the end of the year or in lame duck sessions after elections, when the general public is less likely to be paying attention to political matters. Often the attempts come in the form of underreported stealth amendments to "must-pass" bills such as Omnibus spending packages.

The corporate executives and their lobbyists claim that the H-1B program is vital to America's competitiveness and beneficial to the American economy. If that is truly the case, then why has the Federal Government operated it under such a veil of secrecy for more than 16 years?

In pursuit of accountability, I have repeatedly raised these issues (in writing) to my representative in the U.S. House of Representatives as well as to my two Senators. The results of these efforts have been abysmal. All I ever get in response are generic form letters that do not address my specific concerns. Not coincidentally, all three of these elected officials (and many others in Congress) receive generous campaign contributions from corporations who hire foreign workers under the H-1B visa program.

The implication is clear. The lawmakers allow the H-1B program to be operated in a manner that makes a mockery of representative government, apparently at the behest of their corporate benefactors. This program, which is implemented using taxpayer funds, should be terminated for that reason alone.

The writer is a knowledge worker in California. His previous letter is here.




http://www.vdare.com/letters/tl_031007.htm

There is little if any transparency in the H-1B program. Ever since its inception in 1990, this program has been characterized by a consistent pattern of concealment,

This includes the report to Congress within the past two months which indicated that the H1B cap is already being violated/ignored because the US has been approving double the allowable number, around 115,000 per yr, for the past few years.

This report was NEVER MADE PUBLIC!

This government, these elected officials are no longer accountable to those who elected them. Bill Gates thinks they all work for him.

H1B program is bringing the brightest talent from countries like India ,China.
The Colleges in US are marketing in India/China and immigrants constitute nearly 40% of college admissions.
Think about this. These people if are not retained, they are trained using American Tax money and they return back . It would be a Reverse brain drain.
Please think and analyze immigration in the long term.
Many events like Housing boom,Low Interest rates and Economy being so strong is all because of vibrant immigrant community and the new business model which gives more liquidity and credit for people here.
Basically the other countries are holding dollars and giving credit for American people to realize their dreams.

All myths that immigrants send back money are wrong. They pour it in US economy. I came here in 1999 on H1 and am paying Social Security/ Incomes tax each year. I am law abiding and want to contribute for US developement. You need such people or would drive them out for short term gain. I think this is the time to retrospect and not be guided by emotions. Lou Dobbs analysis of the plight will drive the country back not forward.
The Upper class+ Politician nexus is the main culprit for the broken Health care, Education system and Higer taxes. These need to be fixed.

YEsterday on CNN , there was a news item saying all the Metro areas in Us would have shrunk if immigrants would have not fueled them in the last decade.

If the middle class is given proper income generating opportunities, they can survive not by doing tech jobs but investing their money in the booming economies of the east and live a better life. They lack the training to understnad these oppurtunities.

Look either way if the H1B is abolished the jobs would move offshore at a faster rate and it would hurt the middle class more.

Also, We need to reglate the flow of H1 people and keep a tab that right people enter the country and are really needed in the High tech industry.

Remittances to India by Indians working abroad are an increasingly important factor for the Indian economy's health. There are zillions of articles about this, here's one: http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1052444

The H-1b may bring in a few very bright people, but over the years it has increasingly been used to import very large numbers of ordinary workers (the lion's share in IT) who are being used to displace ordinary American workers, and it was never supposed to do that. A look through an LCA database shows massive 'batch' applications by large companies for rank and file job titles. Instead of esoteric skill sets, what it is being used for in the main are programmers, business analysts, and other ordinary job titles.

It's not hard to see what's in this for businesses. While a few H-1bs who actually have the rare skills may receive handsome pay, the vast majority are only paid at around the 17th percentile of the recorded salary for their job title. That's all the law says has to be paid to an H-1b. On the average overall, they make around $13-20 thousand less than their American counterparts.

The H-1bs I met in Grad school were not geniuses with hard-to-find skills and education. They were doing ordinary IT work - programming, tech support, etc. My partner on an assignment was an Oracle DBA. At that time many American Oracle DBAs were out of work, yet someone at IBM managed to bring him in. This was a direct violation of the intent of guestworker visa law. Meanwhile, I encountered many Americans with advanced skill sets and stellar histories who were desperate for work, any work. A man with an advanced degree applying for a bench tech job, a Unix guru reduced to selling pretzels in a mall, workers becoming homeless and having to move in with friends or their grown children, and more than one suicide. All this because someone here shouted 'shortage.'

The original intent of the visa was to import people only if an American could not be found, but there are many eyewitness stories of Americans being shadowed by these foreigners and then the American got the pink slip and the foreign worker was given the job. Azim Premji claimed that the only Americans slated for firing, because they were underperforming, were losing jobs to foreign replacement workers, which does not explain the forced training often seen. It also does not explain the replacement of whole departments and business functions en masse with foreign workers. Firings for non-performance are individual events, not group operations.

One of the most insulting arguments in defence of guestworker visas is the notion that America needs foreign brains because of some domestic lack. The truth is that underemployment and declining salaries are a major problem in America right now. Many of our youth are trying to figure out what they should study or get trained to do, that will help them maintain a roof over their heads. That is why enrollment in computer science is down, because our domestic talent is looking elsewhere for careers that will allow them enough stable income to live decently and raise a family. The idea that these guestworkers are doing something for us that we are incapable of doing for ourselves is insulting nonsense, and we hear this also from south of the border. The fact is, before we were flooded with foreign workers, Americans did all these jobs.

I frequently run into young workers from abroad who imagine that it is they who are responsible for America's technological advancement and preeminence. The truth is that America was a world leader in technology and progress for many decades before they were even born. There are Americans today who are third and fourth generation IT or engineers (such as my family), and I remember a time when the idea of needing to import foreign workers to do what we had already proved ourselves to be the world's best at would have sounded absurd. To those of us who know these professions, it still does.

As for fueling prosperity in America, the housing boom one poster mentioned is going bust fast in many parts of the country, often ruining homeowners. The fact that the dollar is being kept strong does more than keep petroleum products and Chinese manufactured goods cheap, it also keeps foreign labor cheap, and this is projected to cause the displacement of maybe 40 million Americans across a broad spectrum of professions from their careers over the next decade. How is that good for our nation?

As for preventing the shrinkage of metropolitan areas, most of us view urban sprawl with horror. Crowded, teeming cities are bad, not good, for America. Cities should have enough population to be vibrant, but overpopulation increases competition and misery and lowers the quality of life. Fewer people would have been much better for America. The notion that growth is automatically a good thing is the ideology of a cancer cell.

Nor does the H-1b prevent the movement of jobs offshore. We now recognize that it accelerates offshoring by providing on-the-job training to foreign workers. Once they learn the business, increasingly large segments of work can then move offshore, and that is what is happening to many professions Americans used to be able to count on to provide a decent living.

And why should our middle class be pushed out of technology, a field we mostly invented? Why should we stand for this? Many of us are not only very talented with technology, we love it. Would foreigners stand still for us to move into their country and displace them from their traditional ways of life? Investing in the east is no substitute for a reliable paycheck at home, especially with all the volatility, change, and danger over there. Besides, who is to say that we, and not local businesspeople, should absorb that risk?

Instead, let all these foreign countries develop and become more prosperous themselves, not by taking in work from other countries like some laundry service. Let their people become prosperous by internal achievements, progress, and investment, not by coming over here and unseating American citizens from their jobs and professions. Now, that would be something worth bragging about.

I agree BetsyRoss. Increase in HB1 visas when we have qualified American citizens to fill these jobs is disgraceful and IMMORAL.

American jobs for American citizens first!

Thank you. Perhaps I should PM the text of my reply to our newcomer to make sure s/he sees it.

I think that's a great idea BetsyRoss.

I believe it is difficult to have a foolproof system in any country and US is no exception. H1B requirement is very real, otherwise why would US have such a policy which affects its own citizens.

As a person from another country, I think there are not many countries in the world that take care of its citizens the way US does. There is infrastructure, basic facilities and excellent schools (at the Bachelors, Masters and PhD level) But, the high school system is very poor, to put it euphemistically. I know that any primary, middle or high school student from India/China is way better than one in US. I'm not bragging about it, neither am I saying that US students are dumb. The students are only as good as what they are exposed to.

The syllabus needs a complete revamp. The emphasis on mathematics should be more. I studied my calculus in my 10th grade, while calculus is unheard of until the college level here, to the best of my knowledge. The students need to be exposed more to these challenges. The more they are exposed to, the better they will be.

The Bachelors, Masters and PhD is better here because of the infrastructure. It is not the same case in India although it has been changing in the last 5 years. It is not that the students are dumb there at these levels. It is because they are only as good as what they are exposed to.

I also feel that H1Bs are not the reason for students not taking to engineering. I do not buy the argument that since H1Bs are taking away jobs, students are not interested in engineering. On the other way, students should be motivated to take up engineering just because the government says that there is a shortage of qualified workers in US.

In India and China, students take to engineering because there is a lot of opportunity in the high tech industry not only in their own country but also outside, in US, Australia, Germany, UK and Canada.

The reason US is good economically today is because of the hardwork of the forefathers. I do maintain that H1B is under abuse. While not trying to curb H1B, there should be proper implementation of rules. Blanket H1Bs from companies should be banned.

But again, the real problem is outsourcing. The 40 million American workers will not be displaced because of H1B but because of outsourcing.
Invariably, most of these H1Bs go on to become permanent residents and citizens. The reason outsourcing occurs, apart from the perceived cheap labor, is because the tech companies feel that there is no point in trying to fight a system. The irony here is that most H1Bs stay in US to work for US and become citizens while people here think that they return back to their home country by way of taking up jobs through outsourcing.

The thing is people over there are already prospering through internal achievement - education, progress - by investing in youth and investment - by attracting foreign companies to set up branches. But, nobody seems to be bragging.

The H-1b is often used as step one in an overarching plan to eventually move offshore, so the H-1b is in no way 'better' for American job seekers than offshoring. It is rather like the analogy of boiling a frog by increasing the temperature gradually rather than suddenly so as not to scare the frog and rouse him to action.

Students in other countries are not 'better' they are merely winnowed so that many poorer students are shunted aside. The American education system makes a real effort to educate EVERYONE, even the non-English-speaking children of known illegal immigrants. Foreigners love to compare their cream of the crop with our average. Our best and brightest can hold their own internationally without breaking a sweat.

Another problem is the difference in educational philosophies between the old world and the new. American students do not spend time memorizing and regurgitating large amounts of rote material, as Asian students are typically expected to do. Instead, the American education system concentrates on teaching skills of thought, research, and creativity. As a result, in many cases, our smart kids don't seem smart to Asians.

It is not true that calculus is unheard of until college level. It is common to find it in both high school and AP (advanced placement) classes. We also have programs for gifted students such as the International Baccalaureate. Our education system is far more flexible than that of the old world. As a result, foreigners evaluating us don't see what they would expect to see concerning their own students, and they conclude that we are deficient. Fact: for decades before globalism became prevalent, America was the foremost world leader in engineering, technology and innovation. They did all this with American brains.

The increasing role of remittances by NRIs is well known to India, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Dia ... 900839.cms . No wonder Indians lobby our government for more visas, as if they are the citizens not us.

h1B said that there must be a good reason for the H-1b program. Not true. It's not a requirement, there is no shortage. Perfectly competent and productive American workers are being displaced and forced to train their foreign replacements. Businesses love guestworker visas because they only have to pay them in the 17th percentile of the wage for the given job category. And there are other tricks to lower the pay that companies can pay. A few guestworkers are paid very handsomly - they probably are the best and the brightest, but the vast majority of H-1bs are ordinary workers doing ordinary jobs for which plenty of Americans were available.

We must be careful to avoid the implication that there is anything wrong with the American work force that justifies the importation of guestworkers. It was all a big corporate scam.

Here is a sidebar on the development and spread of cultural mythology. Note that representatives of India Inc. promote the view that there is a 'shortage' and that displaced American workers must've been in line to be fired anyhow because they are too expensive or didn't keep their skills up or something, plus only a small number are being displaced [not true](see Azim Premji's remarks to that effect). Furthermore, since our schools are lousy, there are not enough qualified American students coming up in the pipleline. Therefore, India, Inc. is helping us, and it is beneficial to us for us to be displaced from our professions since we can't do the work anyway. The Asian workers who are pawns in this process are encouraged to believe these myths, and need little encouragement because it makes them feel like they're not causing undeserved suffering over here by participating in the displacement process.

By the same token, cheap labor from south of the border has a similar mythology. That they are only doing jobs we refuse to do, that we lack the work ethic and patience to do, therefore their presence here is helping us (see above) and we should be grateful.

The main differences I see are that a) the folks from the south mostly say we won't do the work, the folks from Asia mostly say we can't, and b) that the folks from south of the border are more openly hostile to us in the dialogue, whereas the Asians tend to speak to us as if we were foolish, stubborn children having a tantrum (see 35=10 rule). Both parties have developed a weird sense of entitlement to American jobs based upon a mythology of American insuffiency. I've even heard a variant of the 'you stole our land' argument from Asians: that we stole America from the native Americans, therefore we have no right to it ourselves and no right to resist their 'takeover' (which is what it's called in some online publications of their press).