Issa takes another shot at new worker visa rules

Sarah D. Wire
January 4, 2017

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, wants companies that recruit highly skilled foreign workers to follow new standards aimed at making it more difficult to exploit the visa program that allows them to work in the U.S.

Issa on Wednesday introduced legislation backed by multiple Democrats and Republicans that changes the requirements for the visa program known as H-1B, which was designed so foreign workers with specialty skills can fill jobs in the U.S. when qualified Americans aren't available.

The program is heavily used by technology companies, particularly in Silicon Valley, but Issa said the spirit of the program has been ignored by companies that replace Americans with workers from other countries whom they can pay less.

"As soon as you have examples of Americans losing jobs, it makes a good program look bad," Issa said. "You have great success stories, but you don't get judged based on your success stories. You get judged on your failures."

He pointed to Southern California Edison, which has been criticized in recent years for laying off Americans and hiring foreign workers through a consulting company.

"It's specifically required that there be a shortage," Issa said. "When Southern California Edison asked their employees being laid off to train their replacements, by definition there was not a shortage."

Edison said at the time of the layoffs that it was “not hiring H-1B workers to replace displaced employees. Any H-1B visa workers SCE does hire for its own workforce are paid a wage comparable to SCE's domestic workforce."

Disney and a handful of other California companies have been criticized in recent years for similar moves.

Only 85,000 H-1B visas are granted each year. Critics complain that U.S. employers exploit loopholes in the system to hire cheaper labor from abroad at the expense of American workers.

Companies with more than 50 employees who have 15% or more employees with the visas must show on H-1B applications that the job was advertised to American workers. But employers can be exempted from that paperwork if the potential employee holds a master’s degree or will be paid at least $60,000 annually.

Issa’s bill would remove the exemption for workers with a master’s degree; he says it's too easy to get one from an uncredentialed foreign university. The bill would also increase the minimum salary needed for an exemption to $100,000 annually.

Issa pitched a similar bill late in the last Congress, when few new bills were considered , and it died in committee without a hearing. But with a new Republican president this year, things could be different.

Reforming the program was among the topics discussed at a December meeting between Trump and tech leaders. Issa said conversations with tech leaders after that meeting, coupled with bipartisan support for the legislation, makes him think the bill has a better chance in this Congress.

"I expect it to move, and move quickly," Issa said. "This is a piece of legislation which logically should get an overwhelming majority in the House on a bipartisan basis. It's designed to be an ... easy win."

Issa said he's hoping the H-1B program changes can be considered outside of broader immigration reform "so we just fix a problem."

"If we can't solve this one on a bipartisan basis, we're not going to get to the harder ones," he said.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...104-story.html

Critics contend Congress still without proposal to stop outsourcing via H-1B program

by Brendan Kirby | Updated 05 Jan 2017 at 12:38 PM

A pair of California congressmen have reintroduced a bill to crack down on abuses of a guest worker program, but critics contend it would do little to stop companies from replacing American workers.

Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Scott Peters (D-Calif.) this week introduced the bill. It is identical to legislation they offered last year, one of a number of bills proposed in the last Congress in response to reports that Disney and other companies were using foreign workers on H-1B visas to replace Americans and then ship information technology jobs overseas. That legislation went nowhere in the last Congress.

The Issa-Peters bill would prohibit “H-1B dependent” companies — those in which the H-1B workforce is at least 15 percent of the total — from displacing American workers unless the foreign workers make at least $100,000. The current threshold is $60,000. The bill also would index the salary to inflation so that the cap would rise over time.

Issa told LifeZette Thursday that past efforts to address outsourcing aided by H-1B visas have bogged down amid insistence from Democrats that no changes to immigration take place without a comprehensive bill to reform the entire system.

“There’s been a partisan divide under President Obama that nothing would happen as far as immigration is concerned, any sort, any way, any how, any time if it didn’t include every part of the Senate-passed comprehensive immigration reform,” he said.

But critics contend that Issa’s proposal is riddled with loopholes that would allow companies to continue replacing American workers unabated. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) told USA Today this week that the bill “doesn’t do anything” to stop the practice. She pointed out that $100,000 is below the going rate in high-wage areas like Silicon Valley, where engineers often enjoy starting pay of more than $140,000.

Russell Harrison, a spokesman for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, said raising the salary exemption essentially says that outsourcing is OK as long as the displaced American worker earns a high salary.

“It’s an improvement over the current system. But it still allows outsourcing,” he said. “If you have a problem with outsourcing, ban outsourcing. If you’re not willing to ban outsourcing, you’re accepting outsourcing.”

Harrison said the bill also would count conditional bonuses toward the $100,000 — even for workers who do not end up meeting the incentives for the bonuses. What’s more, he added, companies can save a great deal of money by offering H-1B visa employees minimal benefits.

“Compensation is not just salary,” he said. “It also includes benefits.”

John Miano, a lawyer and co-author of “Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are Screwing America’s Best & Brightest Workers,” said Issa’s bill is worthless.

“There’s a big difference between what people say and what they actually do in Congress,” he said. “This whole tangle needs to be gotten rid of.”

Miano cited language in the bill granting protection for American workers only during a 90-day period after a company makes its visa petition. He said nearly all H-1B visa petitions are made in April for visas that start in October — far outside that 90-day window.

Miano said the simplest, most effective approach would be to simply prohibit companies from replacing any American worker with a guest worker from abroad, regardless of the income or how many H-1B employees a company has.

Issa said there should not be an outright ban on consulting firms hiring guest workers. He said there is a need for foreign workers in some cases. The bill, he said, would stop companies from using the program to significantly reduce wages. He suggested that a more “strident” approach would jeopardize chances that a bill would pass.

“It shouldn’t be hard, but it is hard,” he said. “And that’s why we were modest … The beauty in it is that we are trying not to overachieve. We’re trying to improve the system.”

Issa said the bill represents a balancing act, noting that it maintains the current 85,000 annual H-1B visa cap, contrary to the wishes of the tech industry.

"None of them are getting what they really want, which is dramatically more visas and faster pathway to normalization for immigration purposes," he said.

Harrison, of the tech worker trade group, said he understands the political concerns of writing a bill that could pass. But he added that there "should be a lot of opportunities this year to get some real H-1B legislation passed."

What's more, Harrison said, there are a number of steps President-Elect Donald Trump can take unilaterally to rein in the program. Suggestions include:

*Handing out visas based on income rather than lottery. Harrison said the administration has the authority to award the visas to anyone as it sees fit. Prioritizing companies offering the highest salaries would help weed out petitions from companies that simply want to reduce labor costs, he said.
*Directing the Justice Department to open investigations of companies based on discrimination against U.S. citizens.
*Banning the federal government from awarding contracts to companies that use H-1B workers. Harrison said his organization has not been able to obtain good data on how many contractors use such workers, but he added that it happens.

http://www.lifezette.com/polizette/i...ay-not-enough/