Thread: MD: A Floral Protest Over Job-Based Visas

Originally Posted by 4_logical_immigration

This was a great form of protest.

Cato, you were probably fired because of your cry baby attitude, lack of people skills and lack of updated technical skills. You should stop whining and blaming everybody else for your problems.

If you think you will get a job if all the H1Bs are deported, you are wrong. The jobs will go to where ever these competent people go. And they will take many more jobs with them. Like the Microsoft jobs which are going to to Canada.

My company could not find a competent Oracle programmer who is looking for a job in the US and we could not import one on H1B because the quota is exhausted. So we had to let the team of six other Americans go and send the work to India. We loved this team, but we cannot work with an incomplete team.

When you drive competent people away, you also drive the team away. Remember what happened in the steel industry...

You know what Pal,

Making ass-umtions like the ones you made show you are not to smart yourself...so like the rest of your kind, who lost ...again...try not to insult Americans as it will come back at you...big time.

Competent people are here and We don't need/want you.

Maybe you could go insult your own and stay away from U.S.

Following on the info above from Nouveauxpoor, Crikey...

Several Misc/Random Points...(the long-time viewers will probably notice some redundancy from my earlier posts - in all fair warning):

1. I don't think everyone (anyone???) here would assume 'all is dandy' with respect to immigration law or policies. Actually, it a very big reason we are here!!!


2. Roy Beck's gumball video is an excellent commentary on just why it is not tenable to allow everyone that might want to come here, to do so.

Roy Beck's (NumbersUSA) Video presentation on US growth population growth, due almost entirely to immigration:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... oy+beck&hl


3. Also as I have mentioned several times on this board previously in some shape or form... all countries have laws to protect their citizens, those citizen's livelihoods, etc. by virtue of a long standing and well recognized principle of international relations: sovereignty. Pick up any
'Foreign Policy 101' textbook, thumb through to the pertinent section, and give a cursory read on the subject. The policies regarding immigration are not set nor designed around the needs of the potential immigrant, they ARE designed with the needs and protection of the host nation's needs.


4. There is no Constitutional right to emigrate to, study in, or even visit the the US. All of those functional activities are governed by laws which are made by Congress using the input from the voting public of the US.


The above, from someone that earned an advanced degree (also paid for from my own sweat and blood at times), also having grown up in a rather poor family, and from somebody that has known at least 1 foreign person that went through the student-GC-citizenship process (11 years for this person; and others too)...

When you have completed the citizenship process, you are then afforded all the responsibilities and rights as a full-fledged citizen. In the meantime, you're just another foreign person working here....


..Now, off to support the good folks in Waukegan to get their city back!

Very well stated PhredE. Would you be available to hold a remedial class for a group of U.S. Senators who apparently are slow learners?

Originally Posted by PhredE

1. I don't think everyone (anyone???) here would assume 'all is dandy' with respect to immigration law or policies. Actually, it a very big reason we are here!!!

Sure, I meant it from the immigrant's perspective. For e.g, immigrants from most middle-eastern countries can migrate to the USA a lot quicker than immigrants from China or India. Even if you are against all immigration, I think there is a problem when the laws make it easier for people who are less likely to assimilate to get preference over those who are more willing to assimilate.

2. Roy Beck's gumball video is an excellent commentary on just why it is not tenable to allow everyone that might want to come here, to do so.

I think that the gumball video misses a key point which is that most people who come to the US do so to work and not to be absorbed as refugees in a welfare state. Almost everybody who migrates to the US does so because there is a willing American inside the US who wants to employ the services of the immigrant and not because he/she wants to live off the state, something which is in any case, almost impossible to do in a capitalist country like the US. In other words, immigration is not one-sided as you seem to be portraying here ("everyone that might want to come here") - it only happens because it is a mutually acceptable and beneficial situation for both parties involved (one of who is an American).
The gumball argument makes sense in European countries where people migrate so that they can take advantage of the welfare state. And these countries pay for it with high unemployment rates, poverty and other issues that are mostly absent in the US. The US immigration policy is largely driven by economics which is how it should be.

The fact that someone might want that immigrant to come here and work for them is no excuse. If you look through an LCA database you can see tens of thousands of filings for jobs. The majority of these jobs were NEVER posted where an American candidate could see or apply for them. The majority of the jobs are ordinary rank and file jobs, for which there is no shortage of qualified Americans. The fact that a citizen wants a foreigner to come work for him does not create a justification for skirting American labor and immigration law via loopholes in a program that envisioned merely cherry-picking rare foreign talent. The H-1B and its sister work visas have turned into large scale American worker replacement programs, which they were never supposed to be.

One loophole is that companies are allowed to offer as low as the 17% percentile in wages and still call it the prevailing wage. Another is that an employee can be applied for in a lower wage area and moved to a higher wage area (Maine saw a lot of this). Still another is the manipulation of job titles to justify lower pay. The net result is that studies show that while some H-1B holders are indeed paid very well, on the average they earn much less, $12-20K depending upon who's talking.

This affects American-based employers, but also opened the barn door to international consulting firms to staff up (with these visas) and make bids for work in America. They could 'compete' because by our standards they were underpaying their workforce. The result, perfectly productive and competent Americans were displaced, our workforce flooded, and underemployment across the land.

So, with a very real financial incentive, no wonder so many employers bypass the American job candidate and go straight for the foreign worker. We need to take that incentive away by closing the loopholes. The fact that the employer and employee may both be willing is not always sufficient - that's why we have labor laws in the first place, and globalism is threatening to undo a century of US labor rights progress. We must not let this happen, or there will be no middle class left in America.

Finally, the gumball argument still holds in the situation of employment-based immigration. It can work if the immigrant is coming to something desirable, but also if they are fleeing something undesirable. Many immigrants report enjoying the open atmosphere, ammenities and infrastructure, and relative lack of crowding in America vs. India, for example.

Here is just one example, it's easy to find others, of H-1B employee abuse. Whenever I run into a hyper-confident foreign worker who insists that all that exploitation talk doesn't apply to him, I want to ask, 'are you sure your employer wanted you because you were just so darn good, or might there be another reason?'

"A Cambridge, Mass.-based information technology company earlier this month agreed to pay $2.4 million in back wages to 607 workers after a U.S. Department of Labor investigation found computer professionals hired under the H-1B visa program were being paid less than their American peers."
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a ... /707180423

The fact that someone might want that immigrant to come here and work for them is no excuse. If you look through an LCA database you can see tens of thousands of filings for jobs. The majority of these jobs were NEVER posted where an American candidate could see or apply for them. The majority of the jobs are ordinary rank and file jobs, for which there is

It is not an excuse but an economic reality that is no different from an American choosing to buy a Japanese car instead of an American one and possibly driving some American worker in GM out of his job. Is that a consideration people take into account when they buy cars? I don't think so. No American would like it if they were told to buy only American cars to protect the American worker, that goes against the very principles that have made this country so great. Businesses go through the same thought processes that you and I go through when making a purchase or a hire.
Coming back to the issue of the immigrant worker, the fact is that historically, immigrants have always been hard working for obvious reasons (you are probably ambitious and eager to prove yourself if you have come all the way to the US to work) and this is a very important factor that employers care about. No doubt there is always potential for exploitation (and remember the American economy benefits when a worker is exploited and something somewhere gets cheaper because of it) because we do not live in a perfect world. But we do live in a world where even the biggest companies are under constant pressure to maintain their growth rates or go out of business.

no shortage of qualified Americans. The fact that a citizen wants a foreigner to come work for him does not create a justification for skirting American labor and immigration law via loopholes in a program that envisioned merely cherry-picking rare foreign talent. The H-1B and its sister work visas have turned into large scale American worker replacement programs, which they were never supposed to be.

The problem is who decides if somebody is a "rare talent"? A Nobel prize winner does not need an H1-B to come to the US. As for "large scale" American replacement programs, I disagree. At 65000 H1-Bs per year, it would take nearly 20 years for there to be a million workers which is a tiny fraction of 1% of today's American population. I bet the vast majority of Americans will never interact with an H1-B in their lives because they are simply so few. In fact many American colleagues of mine have never heard of an H1B visa.

So, with a very real financial incentive, no wonder so many employers bypass the American job candidate and go straight for the foreign worker.

Financial incentive is what drives the whole world. Of course its tough on many individuals who are affected but its inevitable in a free market economy more so in a globalized world. But that is not the whole story, any economist will tell you that when employers get to hire more productive employees, it leads eventually to more jobs in the economy.

sufficient - that's why we have labor laws in the first place, and globalism is threatening to undo a century of US labor rights progress. We must not let this happen, or there will be no middle class left in America.

I disagree. America is doing great like it always has. Protectionist countries like France and Germany are the ones with double digit unemployment rates and aging populations. Unemployment is very low in the US and because of immigration it will not suffer from the aging problem that many European countries are going to face.

Finally, the gumball argument still holds in the situation of employment-based immigration. It can work if the immigrant is coming to

I would probably use the gumball argument to show that the H1-B population is an insignificant minority in the US.

something desirable, but also if they are fleeing something undesirable. Many immigrants report enjoying the open atmosphere, ammenities and infrastructure, and relative lack of crowding in America vs. India, for example.

I agree. Every immigrant who has come to America has essentially come here for a better life. Whether its fleeing from Irish potato famines or Nazi persecution or poor infrastructure, America has always been a beacon of hope for people around the world. But as long as they are coming in legally and with a hunger to work hard, I see nothing wrong with this.

Here is just one example, it's easy to find others, of H-1B employee abuse. Whenever I run into a hyper-confident foreign worker who insists that all that exploitation talk doesn't apply to him, I want to ask, 'are you sure your employer wanted you because you were just so darn good, or might there be another reason?'

I have no issue with what you are saying, there is an element of truth here but the fact is you have to totally shut down immigration, shut down the student intake and cut off America from the rest of the world if you wanted to eliminate every small bit of exploitation that might happen to an immigrant worker.

Few people are calling for a complete moritorium on immigration. But many of us remember when our country had only 200 million people, and the difference is obvious. For one thing, it would be much easier to pursue biofuel as an alternative to imported oil if we had not paved over so much of our best farmland. And why did we pave it over? Homes and the shopping and the infrastructure to support housing.

The foreign car analogy is shaky. The Hondas and Toyotas we buy are often made here by American workers. Honda has announced a new manufacturing plant for NC, in fact. Those companies figured out that we had the power to resist them entering our market if they were seen as predatory, and they also figured out how to make a profit with American workers. American workers turned out to be plenty good enough. Jobs in America should be offered to Americans, and yes there should be a preference. Why do you think it is ok to have dozens or hundreds of jobs in an area, and hide them from American applicants? It's not. Companies may prefer to import workers from some planet where life is mechanical and workers don't expect to be paid anything, but that does not make it right. We need visa and immigration reform that helps curb discriminatory hiring preferences by companies, because, Lord knows, they will not curb it themselves.

And what is a rare talent? Actually, that issue was already addressed in a past crackdown on L-1 visa abuse. Even Harris Miller was warning the Indian companies beforehand to stop playing fast and loose with the definition of specialized knowledge. This term refers again to the concept that it is not ok to displace an American or look overseas when local talent is plentiful, but only to supplement the American workforce with scarce talent and knowledge. Companies were claiming that ordinary skills, easily found in the American workforce, constituted the specialized knowledge that justified issuing this visa. They wouldn't listen, and then came the crackdown: http://www.mofo.com/news/updates/bullet ... 02002.html It is obvious that we are past due for another.

Currently we have a devasting problem with underemployment in this country. Most of our people with college degrees are working in jobs where such degrees are not really needed. Workers over 40 feel a target circle on their backs whenever there are rumors of layoffs. Yet at the same time, we are living longer and healthier lives, and most of us not only want to continue working, but need to in order to support families (both older and younger dependents - the 'sandwich' generation). The best way to offset the coming Social Security crisis is to make sure those workers, who are aging in the modern way, are allowed to continue working. The aging stereotypes of former centuries simply don't apply to this group.

The exploitation of foreign workers under this system is anything but small. Tata, Patni, and Infosys have all been accused and sometimes sued for violating US labor law. ( http://www.lieffcabraser.com/lawsuitagainsttata.htm, http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/ca ... s_overtime, http://www.rediff.com/money/2003/may/11infosys.htm, http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070607/tech_vis ... .html?.v=1) I sometimes read Indian job ads and the obvious age and sometimes other discrimination is vile. I don't want their culture of labor practice to take root here.

So much of the weeping and wailing over on Immigration Voice is their own darn fault. So many of them used a temporary work visa as if it were an immigration visa. There are so many of them stuck in green card backlog because their intent was to immigrate, and they came here during years when we were letting in far too many H-1Bs for the state our economy was in. Their sense of entitlement to immigrate just astounds me. If I were complaining that the Indian government was framing its laws in a way that crushed my dreams, I'd be laughed out the door. Why do so many foreigners fail to understand that America is a sovereign nation with a perfect right to regulate immigration for the good of the citizens it already has?

Finally, your numbers are way off. Between 2000 and 2003 the H-1B cap was nearly 200K AND there were many loopholes. Hires by institutions of higher education, for example, do not count against the cap. So, there's at least 600K for those years right there. And remember the extra 20K for graduates. According to most estimates, we are looking at nearly a million of these folks, most of them imported during the years of mass layoffs and massive job loss by American workers. That sort of influx has got to be noticed by American job seekers in terms of scarcity of openings to apply for, and an upsurge in competition for openings. And that is exactly what we have been seeing if we are in fields such as IT that are targeted for visa use.

The bottom line: the best thing for America is to stop wasting American talent. Get all of us back to work at our best and highest level, then and only then, if there is a shortage of some talent we can discuss importing temporary foreign workers. The best thing foreigners can do to help themselves understand America, is to learn the difference between 18th century America and 21st century America. They are different places.

This article is almost a year old but worthy of posting, as it is so relevant to our topic today. I disagree with one contention, that we are not crowded. Maybe not in comparison to Europe like he says, but we don't want to become like Europe!

Stopping the Census Clock
As America’s population approaches the 300-million mark, the country isn’t in the mood for celebrating.

Rick Bowmer / AP
DAILY U.S. CENSUS CLOCK
US Population Estimate: 302,397,935 at 09:41 GMT (EST+5) Jul 21, 2007

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Evan Thomas
Newsweek
Updated: 4:21 p.m. MT Oct 10, 2006

Oct. 10, 2006 - At 11:03 on the morning of Nov. 20, 1967, a giant “census clockâ€

And now for something hot off the presses - a most excellent point by point analysis of myth vs. fact on the H-1B:

The Myths And Facts Driving The H-1B Debate

The debate's not easing up. All the more reason to be armed with data to consider the topic.


By Alice LaPlante, Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, InformationWeek
July 21, 2007
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/sh ... =201200100



The emotion around the H-1B debate is as intense as ever. The facts and concerns about the U.S. guest worker program are changing, however, as demand for foreign-born talent soars, the IT job market improves, and worries about abuse or unintended uses of the H-1B grow. Offshore outsourcers have helped reshape the debate, as a handful of the largest ones scarf up more than a quarter of all unrestricted H-1B visas for their U.S. offices. Congressional reformers are questioning how companies use these visas, and new research is providing better insight into who gets them. The comprehensive immigration reform championed by President Bush died in June, taking with it several proposals for revamping H-1B visas. But there's still a chance the H-1B program will look markedly different next April, when the government again accepts applications. Here are the myths--and facts--that will go a long way toward driving the H-1B debate.

MYTH: H-1B visa abuse is obviously rampant.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, one of the main agitators for H-1B reforms this year, says the potential for widespread abuse exists but acknowledges lawmakers don't have a clear picture. "We're looking into these programs because we just don't know the extent of the abuse," he says in an e-mail. "I don't know if companies have gone too far, but it's evident that some are trying their best to find the loopholes." Stephen Yale-Loehr, a Cornell University law professor and lawyer who specializes in immigration issues, says he doesn't think there's a "huge fraud problem" with H-1Bs.

FACT: H-1B abuse is happening.

There are plenty of ways to abuse the system. One is to advertise for H-1B applicants only. Another is to seek H-1B visas for jobs that don't yet exist--as do "body shop" companies, which then hire out people, sometimes through employment agencies, for contract work.

But the most likely source of H-1B abuse pertains to the rule that employers pay the "prevailing wage" for skills in a certain geographic area. That's a standard rife with loopholes, says John Miano, founder of the Programmers Guild, which acts as an advocate for the software programming community. Depending on available data, an employer can use the median wage for all U.S. employees working in an occupation and location, the average of an employer's current workers, or the Department of Labor's skills-based prevailing wage system. Classifying workers in the lowest of those levels can mean paying them in the 15th to 20th percentile. "Between all these measures, you usually have enough leeway to take $20,000 to $30,000 off the market wage without breaking the law in any detectable manner," contends Miano. Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology who's on leave as a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, points to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service's most recent report to Congress, which shows that the median wage in 2005 for new H-1B computing professionals was $50,000. That year, InformationWeek's Salary Survey found a median staff base salary of $69,000 and total cash compensation of $71,000.

MYTH: The chance to change the H-1B law died with comprehensive immigration reform.

"There's no question that a comprehensive bill would make it easier to get our reforms passed," says Grassley, who promises to keep working for ways to end the fraud and abuse he suspects. A number of standalone bills have been introduced over the last year or so, including the SKIL bill, which aims to raise the cap to 115,000, as well as the bill by Grassley and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., that would have put many more restrictions on H-1B employers, like requiring them to post the jobs they want to fill on a government job board. Any of these bills could resurface, and new ones could be introduced.

FACT: The H-1B cap has changed repeatedly in the past decade without comprehensive reform.

The H-1B cap has seesawed. In 1998, Congress lifted it from 65,000 to 115,000. The American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act, signed by President Clinton in late 2000, raised the cap to 195,000, then lowered it in fiscal 2003 to 65,000. Employers are pushing for a cap increase, with some of the biggest names in the tech industry, including Microsoft and Google, testifying for it before congressional committees. That public profile could keep a cap increase on the political agenda and bring reforms along with it. Newer and more radical proposed immigration changes, such as creating a merit-point system on which to award green cards, don't have much of a shot. The demand for more H-1B visas will make it harder to push aside.

MYTH: Offshore outsourcing and foreign visas have sunk U.S. tech employment, and wages have cratered.

There's been huge disruption in the United States--26% fewer programming jobs since 2001, for example. But the tech job market is still robust. There have been corresponding jumps in management and software engineering jobs. Tech unemployment today is the same--2%--as it is for the broad management and professional category that includes 51 million people, according to an average of the last four quarterly surveys by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At 3.58 million, tech employment is up 8% over the pit of 2004, and back up higher than the boom years of 2000 and 2001. Salaries show signs of growth again after stalling in recent years: The median IT manager compensation is $105,000, and staffer compensation is $78,000, according to this year's InformationWeek Salary Survey of 7,281 IT pros. The typical raise this year--5% for managers, 3.6% for staffers--was higher than it's been in years.

FACT: The U.S. tech industry is having trouble attracting new blood.

The technology industry points out that fewer Americans are enrolling in technology programs at the university level, and that increasingly large percentages of those emerging from graduate programs are foreign born. Almost 60% of engineering Ph.D. degrees awarded annually are earned by foreign nationals, according to the American Society for Engineering Education. To the industry, that's further evidence that more H-1B visas are needed. Yet critics see a self-fulfilling prophecy, as companies fail to retrain older workers and discourage younger workers from entering the field. "Due to both outsourcing and insourcing, many young people are concluding that technology is a bad place to invest their time," says Mark Thoma, a professor of economics at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

MYTH: An employer needs to look for a U.S. worker before hiring on an H-1B visa.

Employers do need to run ads checking for available U.S. workers before applying for automatic approval for a green card.

FACT: When it comes to H-1Bs, most employers aren't required to prove they couldn't fill a job with a U.S. worker.

The exception is H-1B-dependent companies--those that have more than 50 employees and have more than 15% of their U.S. workforce on H-1B visas, or companies that have been caught committing "willful failure or misrepresentation" on past H-1B forms. Those companies must attest that they've made "good-faith steps" to recruit U.S. workers for the job and that they've offered the job to any U.S. worker who applied that was at least as qualified as the H-1B candidate.

MYTH: There are only 65,000 H-1B visas issued each year.

The cap for unrestricted new H-1B visas is set at 65,000. But since 2004, there have been 20,000 more H-1B visas allocated annually to U.S.-educated foreign workers with advanced degrees. Also, educational institutions and nonprofits can bring 27,500 foreign workers into the United States each year above and beyond the cap (New York Public Schools is No. 22 on the list of biggest H-1B employers). Indeed, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service approved 117,000 H-1B visas in 2005, according to data by the Government Accountability Office in a report to Congress in June 2006. People can work up to six years on H-1B visas, with renewals.

FACT: H-1B visas are tougher to get these days.

Last year it took almost two months to fill the 65,000 cap; this year, enough applications arrived in two days. One reason is that Indian-based outsourcing companies are applying for more visas to serve U.S. customers. But the appetite for foreign talent is growing among U.S. companies, too, and even the coolest companies don't get to jump the line. Google employed 328 H-1B visa holders in 2006, putting it at No. 53 on the list of recipients, according to congressional research. In June, Pablo Chavez, Google's policy counsel, wrote in a company blog post that the cap on H-1B visas "prevented more than 70 Google candidates from receiving H-1B visas."

MYTH: Nearly all the H-1B visas go to foreign outsourcers, whose workers take their U.S.-learned skills back to India.

It's true that use by India-based outsourcers has exploded. But U.S.-based companies and universities in total are still the biggest users. Microsoft hired 3,117 in 2006, according to congressional research, making it the No. 3 employer of H-1B visa holders; IBM hired 1,130; Oracle 1,022; Cisco and Intel, both more than 800; Motorola, 760. About one-third of Microsoft's U.S. workforce is here under some visa assistance. These companies generally hire with the goal of getting the person a green card to work in the United States indefinitely. And much of their recruiting comes on college campuses. "Companies aren't bringing people over. That's very rare," says Rod Malpert, an immigration attorney at Littler Mendelson. "Typically, these people have already been here four to seven years at U.S. universities."

FACT: The H-1B visa is the "outsourcing visa."

At the same time, the major offshore outsourcing firms have become dependent on the H-1B visa--as have the U.S. companies that hire Indian-based outsourcers to do work for them. Seven of the top 10 employers of H-1B visa holders have most of their staffs in India, and those seven employed a total of 19,400 H-1B workers in 2006. That's 30% of the unrestricted cap.

Tata Consultancy Services hired 3,046 H-1B workers last year, according to congressional research. A few will stay in the United States for two years or more, but most do project assignments lasting six to 12 months, says S. "Paddy" Padmanabhan, TCS's executive VP of global human resources development. "Ninety-nine percent go back to India," he says.

Sens. Grassley and Durbin proposed legislation to limit that, alleging that such short-term use of H-1Bs only fuels offshoring of work by U.S. clients. Critics label it "insourcing" and consider it a distortion of H-1B's purpose. Yet Indian firms say they're using the visas exactly as intended--for short-term work. The H-1B visa isn't an immigration issue but rather a trade issue, says Kiran Karnik, president of Nasscom, a trade organization that represents Indian IT services and software companies. Nasscom supports different types of visas for short-term work and the indefinite, green card-bound employees at places like Microsoft. "There is no visa appropriate for the IT industry worldwide," Karnik says.

MYTH: H-1B visas are a battle for the highest tier of talent--the world's best and brightest technologists.

Most companies don't even make the case that they're chasing the most skilled people. A full 56% of visa requests in 2005 asked for H-1B workers at the lowest of the Labor Department's four-tier skill level--just 5% were for the highest level, 8% for the second-highest. Programmers Guild founder Miano says this shows that these workers either aren't contributing substantially to America's ability to compete, or employers are understating workers' skills to justify paying them less. The former assessment, however, ignores the possibility that having a good supply of lower-tier talent could be what companies need to compete. But Norman Matloff, a professor of computer science at the University of California at Davis who has studied the H-1B issue, sees the visa fundamentally as a way to hire cheaper foreigners or to avoid hiring older U.S. workers seen as more expensive. "This is about cheap labor, period," says Matloff. "H-1Bs are being exploited, even as U.S. workers are being displaced."

FACT: The very best employers have other options.

The premier U.S. tech employers still search the world for the very best people. And if they can't bring them here, they have every reason to do more development abroad. Microsoft recently said it plans to open a development center this fall in Vancouver, British Columbia--a two-hour drive from Microsoft's Washington headquarters--in part for people who can't get U.S. visas. Microsoft plans to hire 200 people there but will have room to expand. Says Cornell's Yale-Loehr, "At the very top end, for truly multinationals like Microsoft and Oracle, it really is a competition for the best and brightest."

http://www.informationweek.com/news/sho ... =201200100

Summary Footnotes to the above:

1. There is NO *RIGHT* to be able to work in the US - short and sweet.
It is provided as a privilege as deemed warranted by our immigration / naturalization laws.

2. Prospective 'merit' is only one of MANY FACTORS by which people are assessed in their worthiness to be able to come here.

3. The expectation or entitlement thinking that says:

"I should be able to come work here because I am <insert your competence measurement HERE> in my field" is a construction of global elitist thinking. Again, this has no formal basis in US law. While such thing *may* help, there is no right for such treatment. [refer to #2 above]