Thread: New 'guest worker' restrictions sought

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New 'guest worker' restrictions sought
Tuesday, November 22, 2005

By PAUL BRUBAKER
HERALD NEWS


PATERSON - It's about protecting American jobs for Americans.

That was one of the messages on Monday, as Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, announced his Defend the American Dream Act, a bill that would tighten restrictions around the federal H-1B visa program.

The visas have allowed companies to temporarily hire educated, highly skilled foreign "guest workers," often for half of what Americans in the same positions would earn.

"This is not an anti-immigrant stunt, but American workers must come first," said Pascrell, at the curbside news conference in front of the state Labor Department building that attracted 25 people on a gray, chilly day.

"Corporations would rather wait six months to fill a position in order to hire cheap labor from abroad rather than looking for American workers first," he said.

Sona Shah, 34, a naturalized American citizen born in India, said that she was displaced from her computer program analyst job at ADP Wilco, a financial services company, by the hiring of H1-B workers.

"I witnessed at my company the degradation of both sides of the work force - foreign and American," said Shah, who has filed a discrimination suit against ADP Wilco. Americans lost jobs to foreign workers, and H-1B visa workers were denied prevailing wages, she said.

Pascrell's bill includes provisions such as requiring employers to pay prevailing wages, and to publicly post open positions for 30 days before hiring an H-1B visa holder.

Representatives of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, a Washington-based professional association, and The Organization for the Rights of American Workers also attended Pascrell's news conference.

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Be our guest, but don't take our jobs

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

When President Bush took office in January 2001, there was hope that he would reform the country's immigration policies. One area needing immediate attention was the H-1B visa program. It permits American companies to hire well-educated immigrants for a limited amount of time. The problem is that the limits are too lax. Jobs that should be going to educated U.S. citizens are handed over to lower paid immigrants. It is a variant on Ross Perot's "sucking sound" analogy of American jobs going south of the border. The jobs remain in the United States, but the workers are not Americans. This must stop.


Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, is introducing the Defend the American Dream Act in the House of Representatives. The bill would raise visa applications from $1,500 to $4,500 per employee. It also forces companies to extend a 30-day application process for American workers before applying for a H-1B visa.

Pascrell's bill also would shorten the length of stay permitted on these visas and eliminate a loophole that currently grants an additional 20,000 H-1B visas to workers with advanced degrees. This is above and beyond the national cap of 65,000.

The original idea behind guest worker visas is sound. There are many jobs that go wanting in the United States because they are low-skilled and pay poor wages. A pool of low-skilled workers is necessary.

But the trend is disturbing because these are not low-skilled jobs being filled by immigrants; these are good jobs that should pay good wages. By reaching out of the American job pool and hiring immigrants, employers can pay far less than prevailing wages despite the fact there are U.S. workers capable of doing the same tasks.

As Pascrell said, "We're allowing companies to simply reach out into other countries to do the job at half the price."

Guest worker programs should not become a legal way of creating indentured servants in the United States. Where there is need, the programs are invaluable. But in this case, there is greed rather than need.

Congress cannot be distracted by other items on its plate. As a result of the war on terror, immigration policies have shifted toward tracking terrorists - not with great success, either. The president and Congress have a responsibility to protect U.S. citizens from physical and economic harm. The guest worker visa needs a fix now.

Already many "tech" jobs have disappeared from the United States. Additionally, consumers calling for billing information may find they are actually talking to someone in India rather than in the United States.

It's hard to retrieve the jobs once they're gone. The H-1B visas are allowing qualified immigrants to enter the United States and take jobs from qualified citizens. This is fundamentally wrong and will have dire consequences on the long-term health of the U.S. economy.

"The same thing will happen to high-tech industry as happened to manufacturing in this country," Pascrell said. That is a prophecy that American workers cannot allow to be fulfilled.

Pascrell's proposed bill is a not knee-jerk xenophobic reaction to immigrant workers. American companies will still be able to bring in temporary workers for jobs that must be filled. But the federal government would not be able to turn a blind eye to an abuse of the guest worker visa program.

Congress must act.