Thread: Dallas ISD, Area Firms Sought Worker Visas Amid Job Losses

Dallas ISD, area firms sought worker visas amid job losses

08:14 AM CDT on Monday, March 30, 2009

By KATIE FAIRBANK / The Dallas Morning News
kfairbank@dallasnews.com

North Texas companies and the Dallas Independent School District requested visas last year for hundreds of foreign workers to fill professional positions – even as the nation's economy faltered.

The hiring of H-1B workers has been debated nationally as part of the federal stimulus package and locally because of layoffs at DISD. Congress weighed in last month, adding rules that companies that take stimulus money must follow during their next round of hiring. The legislation sets up more regulatory hurdles for companies, including a requirement that companies can't replace laid-off U.S. workers with foreign workers.

About 50 companies, along with DISD, applied for H-1B visas for jobs in Texas last year and then announced layoffs of thousands of workers in the state, a Dallas Morning News review of government databases shows.

The applications with the U.S. Department of Labor and the layoff notices to the Texas Workforce Commission don't show whether the applications for foreign workers are for the same jobs that were cut. The companies reached by The News all declined to comment on the subject.

Visa requests with the Labor Department don't always translate into jobs, but the filings are the only way to check a company's intentions. Companies don't have to report how many foreign employees they have, and most don't give out those numbers.

The Labor Department said the number of H-1B requests each year is more than three times higher than the number of visas issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

But data provided by the agency shows that in North Texas, companies got visas for most of their initial requests in 2008.

Even so, companies don't always follow through on hiring.

ST Microelectronics, which has operations in North Texas, filed 21 permanent visa requests last year but wound up hiring only two people. "It's a very expensive approach for us to use visas to fill positions. If we can't find what we're looking for here, then we use a visa, but that's not our preferred method," said spokesman Mike Markowitz.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' filing fees are $320 for an H-1B visa and $475 for a permanent visa, also known as a "green card."

Last year, every one of the 65,000 H-1Bs and 20,000 specialty visas allotted by the government was requested on the first day of filing.

Magnet for criticism

The visa program for foreign workers has been a lightning rod since it was introduced in 1952. Today's version of the visa, an H-1B, is meant for specialty occupations such as information technology and engineering.

Traditionally, about half of all workers on H-1B visas become permanent residents, experts say. Hiring under the program took off during the technology boom in the 1990s and has continued unabated since. Meanwhile, complaints have kept in step.

Critics claim that the visas are used to displace older, more expensive workers while keeping an artificial cap on salaries. They also say the program has been hijacked by so-called "job shops," which employ large numbers of H-1B workers as contract programmers.

"In 2006, four of the five biggest users of the H-1B program were foreign job shops, firms that make no effort to look for American workers and are in business solely to contract out H-1Bs to other companies at allegedly cut-rate wages," said U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio.

"It's about cheap labor. If I were to tell you that a company takes advantage of every tax loophole they can find, you wouldn't be shocked. With the H-1B work visa, it's the exact same thing for the exact same reason," said Dr. Norman Matloff, a professor at the University of California at Davis who has studied the subject for years.

Paul Reeves of Greenville has worked in telecommunications for decades. Now, at 57, he says he can't find a job in his field because they're all filled by foreign workers on H-1B visas.

"I've been trying to find work, and it's all tied up with people who make two-thirds of the wages I make," he said. "They cut the pay scale. I know at least 10 people who are well-qualified in telecommunications who can't find work."

Locally, some of the largest requests for H-1B visas came from Texas Instruments Inc. and DISD. The News also made three filings for permanent visas during the period.

TI said that more than half of its 290 H-1B filings last year were extensions or amendments for people changing jobs – not for new employees.

"If you look at the whole semiconductor industry, it's not a big user. It's about 1,000 people annually [across the industry]. Most of those are visa holders who have advanced degrees from U.S. universities. That's also true for us," said TI spokeswoman Gail Chandler.

She added that H-1B holders at the Dallas-based chipmaker represent about 3 percent of TI's workforce in the Americas. TI doesn't break out the number of employees it has in the U.S. but says it has 14,600 workers in the Americas and 29,500 worldwide.

TI announced 1,200 layoffs in Texas in January and probably won't make as many visa requests during the next round of filings, which begins Wednesday.

"Very much like other companies, we're hiring fewer employees overall. That extends to our hiring of foreign nationals," Chandler said. "Our request for visas will be about 20 percent less this year."


Dallas ISD tops list

DISD had the most filings of any North Texas entity, with 380 requests for H-1B visas and five for permanent visas.

"We're obviously trying to find more bilingual teachers to help us with our population," said school district spokesman Jon Dahlander. Students with limited English proficiency now number 53,785 in DISD, or 34 percent of total enrollment.

Dahlander added that despite job cuts of about 1,000 positions this school year, "we will be making new requests in April." He said he didn't know how many.

The combination of layoffs, job cuts and increased numbers of foreign workers has created a tense atmosphere in the school district – so much so that H-1B holders reached by a reporter were too scared to speak publicly about their situation.

Rena Honea, president of the Alliance AFT teachers union in Dallas, said foreign workers are in a tough situation.

"They're afraid speaking will make them a target and make them lose their job and be deported," she said. "They're here because they need to be and want to be."

Dr. Ron Hira, author of Outsourcing America, adds that visa holders are also victims of a soured economy.

Companies are required to let the government know when a visa holder stops working for them and provide a return ticket home for the worker.

There is no grace period for deportation when an H-1B visa holder is let go. But many workers try to switch to another kind of visa, such as a tourist visa, while they search for another job.

"Many H-1B holders who are laid off will be desperate to find another job on practically any terms – low wages, poor working conditions – in order to stay in the country," Hira said.

"This further drives down wages for American workers and puts H-1B workers in even a more vulnerable position to be exploited."


In the Know: What is an H-1B visa?

The H-1B visa program allows U.S. companies to hire foreign workers for positions in the United States. The visas are good for three years and can be renewed for an additional three years. The program is for specialty occupations such as information technology, banking, health care, teaching and engineering.

A permanent visa is also known as a "green card." The employer-sponsored visa gives official immigration status and allows the holder to stay in the U.S. permanently.

SOURCE: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Please go to source link to access the following two charts:
1) Visa requests by firms that announced layoffs
2) Layoffs by companies that requested worker visas

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... ce887.html

From: "Lonewacko"
http://24ahead.com/dallas-school-distri ... g-h-1b-wor

Back in 2006, the DISD board wanted to hire illegal aliens* as bilingual teachers; the main person pushing that was linked to the League of United Latin American Citizens. A year earlier, that board passed a resolution requiring administrators to learn Spanish*.
**
* http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 370b4.html

*From a U.S. English press release:

Late Thursday night, a 5-4 vote of the Dallas school board made this Texas county the first in the nation to require administrators to learn Spanish or lose their jobs...

"The Dallas school board's extreme approach sends the unmistakable message that English is optional in the area," explained Mauro E. Mujica, Chairman of the Board of U.S. English, Inc. "This is part of a frightening trend where English-speaking Americans are being asked to learn a foreign language, while nothing is expected out of non-English speaking immigrants to America. Instead of forcing their administrators to learn the language of immigrants, the district should open its facilities to programs that teach immigrant parents English."

...While Dallas County ranks 138th in the nation in the percentage of residents who speak Spanish at home, it is ninth in the concentration of Vietnamese speakers, eighth in the concentration of Urdu speakers, and 14th in the concentration of Korean speakers. In all, 123,000, or six percent of Dallas County residents, speak a language other than English or Spanish at home. The "outreach" program makes no attempt to reach other immigrant families...

(U.S. English website: http://www.us-english.org/)

And this same school system is cheating the American Students.

What about excluding the undocumented students Grade Point Averages from being included in class ranking of High School Seniors?

American Students have and are being cheated out of great college opportunities due to undocumented students with lower level classes and making "A's" being included in the numbers of class ranking.

In other words the American Students taking AP (college level courses in High School) compared to dummy classes of the undocumented students course of studies with A's.

Wondering how many American Students have been CHEATED OUT OF COLLEGE?

I read that demand for principals and administrators in the Dallas school district were required to learn Spanish and puked. At that time I was hell-bent on a tear to stop wasting taxpayer dollars by Lee County FL school district publishing guides for parents to help their kids with homework, not only in English but Spanish and Haitian Creole, while the district could not afford to buy more land and build new schools, because probably of all the non-English speaking, non-taxpaying illegals pumping out kids. How can any parent that does not speak or read English even try to help the first-grader when all the lessons are in English?
Education is a cohesive effort between school and family, and if family has no idea where little Pablo or little Nyugen screwed up, they cannot help correct the problem.
The politically-correct addressing of education is one of the worst things that has happened to this country. Just curious if the Vietnamese and Korean kids also have to learn Spanish?

vortex: Does American parents and child have an advantage? Spoon feed those undocumented illegal students