Thread: Judge rejects student H-1B visa injunction

I was also laid-off in 2001 in the second massive lay-off of my IT career. I have not found a job since and am slowly starving, facing my doom.

Corporations separate personal assets from the corporate shell. Therefore a corporation can incur debt, the owner can transfer the money to personal accounts, and then run the company into bankruptcy. That's why we keep reading about how credit affects jobs. It's the business cycle of corruption. Form a corporation, incur massive debt, transfer funds to personal accounts, then crash and burn.

Oh, and don't forget to circumvent the hard won labor reforms that Americans have fought for by hiring third-world workers instead. Slave wage jobs for Americans.

We are being turned back into a nation of slaves and serfs. We are slipping back to pre-French Revolution times.

Will Americans ever become fed-up, or will we just sort of drivel away into a fascist totalitarian style state?

What would happen if everybody stopped work for one day, or observed a 15 minute silence work-stoppage every (for non-essential services)? What will it take to scotch the corporate goons and their corrupt government cronies?

What has worked to stave off the most hideous attempts to raise the H-1B quota back up to pre-2003 levels has been the emergence and maturation of activist leaders who managed to get heard by a few legislators. This took time and is still a struggle. Another approach, executed simultaneously, was to reach out to the public and help them connect the dots about why they and their newly grown children were having such a hard time with their careers. We had to branch out from just the nerd point of view, because many people were irritated by our success in the roaring 90s and thought we had it coming. When the rapacious foreign business model began to branch out, we were able to say, 'see?' and where once the average American didn't understand the danger, now a great many of them do. Gaining credibility was and is an uphill battle. As one leader pointed out, we can come to the hearing with all the facts, witnesses, and proof in the world, but when someone like Bill Gates claims that Americans are stupid and can't be found for openings, the reaction is still all too often, "Hearing adjourned, thanks to the rest of you for coming, you can go now." NumbersUSA has been an extremely valuable ally. Some of their members were actually asking, 'so we bring in a few really smart foreign people, what's the harm in that?' Roy Beck's organization set them straight.

What part of the country are you in, and what are you doing to survive?

I'm in Oregon and making plans to move to a state with a better economy. I've been taking contract jobs, scab labor type jobs, on a contingent basis. No health insurance, no guarantee of work, no guarantee that I'll be paid. I have been ripped-off after completing assignments at big corporate sites, such grocery type stores, and then not paid. The large corporation has no responsibility to pay me, I must take the contractor who "hired" me to small claims court. I have reservations about accepting contract assignments because they frequently do not pay after the work is completed.

You might be surprised, the big name corps that use me to do their work through a temporary arrangement with a "contractor"or "temp agency".

By the way, I constantly get calls from people with Indian type accents. They work for temp agencies. Their websites always show a corporate presence in the USA and in India and globally. Sometimes they want to know the spelling of my middle name as it appears on my passport and my full social security number.

I have stopped dealing with these global recruiters from India. I am concerned that my identity might be stolen.

I am considering studying web design now or just taking any steady job. I am not young and have arthritis in my back so that limits my job choices.

Basically I am living day to day, spending my 401K retirement money and waiting to die.

You have described what happened to the contract market I used to thrive in. What is your specialty? IMO you need to take a good hard look at government, and yes maybe move to another state.

By government I mean, federal, state, county, city, quasi-governmental entities (water districts, public transit, educational consortia, etc.), and K-12. Yes, K-12 had IT jobs, and a surprising number of them. Most districts of any size have a mainframe.

What is your specialty? Oftentime in huge governmental institutions, departments will get fed up with centralized IT and hire their own departmental IT staff. Get along well with the central IT folks and you can end up being assimilated. These types of situations often are looking for the "IT shop in a box" type of guy - workstation, web, etc.

The governmental application process is much more precise than corporate. The correct forms, wording, and observance of deadlines MUST be present. Usually there is a testing process. It took me about six tries with the state to even get an interview, another few to get hired. The federal process is especially arcane, but well worth it once you are inside.

The application must look right, even if you have to stretch a little, as it is being screened by a clerical person who does not know anything about the job. At least you won't be screened by an Indian or Indian-written software (If Is(lname) != desi() then circularfile())

Also, you need to get good at finding the websites where government jobs are posted. They are usually not on Monster or the local paper.

dahvid: Hi there from the Portland area.

Hey buddy, I do hope things turn around for you. Glad to know you're in the area.

Also, you need to get good at finding the websites where government jobs are posted. They are usually not on Monster or the local paper.

More and more, local (city) and county level jobs are being posted on [local] Craig's List - under the IT categories. Here in my area, while the occurrence of local IT jobs is somewhat sporadic and random, there definitely are some available.

Re: Federal jobs do 2 basic things:
a) One, sign up to one of the automated email announcement distribution systems available (ex: http://www.federaljobsearch.com, I think there are others too) - to receive a nice current listing of the newly announced jobs being advertised.

b). Second, and probably most important, gain an understanding of the nature of the hiring process; an in particular, understand the types of job solicitations (MP vs. DEU, etc, regular FTE vs. Temp vs Term, etc) and also pay attention to the time period open to submit applications. (The length of time open for applications can tell you a LOT about what is going on in the internal/back-end of the process).

Just FYI from someone that's been through the process a couple of times...

Good points, PhredE! Here in the state, a short posting period usually indicates that there is an internal 'preferred candidate.' I would say, check out the division one is interested in, calculate how to get the 'look and feel' of a sucessful member. I have always gotten hired when I clicked with the hiring manager, never when I didn't. Government is also more tolerant and protective of older employees.

Checking out the area during lunchtime can provide valuable style and dress code information.

Persistance is a key to successful government applications: it's almost impossible to grasp the nuances of their hiring culture without practice and learning from mistakes.

Judge rejects student visa injunction sought by H-1B opponents
Tech workers don't have standing to fight Bush administration visa move
By Patrick Thibodeau
All Comments (27) | Post New

August 7, 2008 (Computerworld) A U.S. district court judge in New Jersey this week rejected an attempt by H-1B visa opponents to halt the Bush administration's extension of student visas from one year to 29 months -- a move it claimed would give students a better shot at getting an H-1B visa.

The opponents argued that the extension, put in place earlier this year, is a backdoor visa increase and will hurt U.S. workers. But in a ruling on Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Faith Hochberg denied a preliminary injunction sought by the Programmers Guild, the Immigration Reform Law Institute and other groups.

The lawsuit was initially filed in May.

Hochberg's ruling focused less on the merits of the case and more on whether H-1B opponents had legal standing to bring it, noting that they could not show they had been directly hurt by the student visa extension. "Instead of alleging concrete injury, plaintiffs assert a generalized grievance with a particular government policy," the judge wrote.

The ruling appears to offer opponents little hope that their lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which approved the visa extension, will succeed.

The judge ordered the two parties to file briefs as to "whether this case should be dismissed for lack of standing." Those briefs are due by Nov. 14.

Although the H-1B opponents can appeal the injunction, no decision on doing that has yet been made. John Miano, founder of the Summit, N.J.-based Programmers Guild, said the extension opponents are now working on a response.

But on the issue of legal standing, Miano believes tech workers do have the standing needed to challenge the Bush administration move. "Should a group of U.S. [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] workers and organizations representing STEM workers have standing to challenge a rule intended to increase the supply of STEM workers in the U.S.?

In its lawsuit, the Programmers Guild said its members "will experience further job displacement, denials of job opportunities, wage depression and increase[d] job competition by a DHS estimate of 12,000 to 30,000 foreign workers."

Hochberg said that the plaintiffs were expressing "general dissatisfaction" with the policy, which does little to separate them from "the public at large" in having grounds to claim injury. Moreover, Hochberg wrote that there are "competing interests" to the claim by the plaintiffs "that granting the preliminary injunction is consistent with the public interest in preserving jobs and wages for American workers."

The judge wrote that the preliminary injunction "would cause extreme hardship to lawfully present guest students, such as being forced out-of-status and facing deportation."

Proponents of the student visa extension argued that it was needed to allow students to seek an H-1B visa. The 85,000-visa cap, which includes 20,000 allocated to those with advanced degrees, is being reached in early April each year -- prior to the close of the academic year. That makes it difficult for new grads to get a new visa before their old visa expires.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/art ... Id=9111963