Thread: Response to editorial to set H1-B visas straight

A reader's dissection of an editorial
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pb ... 46/OPINION
Sunday, September 16, 2007

A reader wrote this lengthy response to the Dallas Morning News editorial that I posted last week in the Immigration Blog. Here’s his note:

I saw the reposting of the Dallas Morning News editorial.

I though I would point out some of the flaws in regard to the H-1B program:

1. "To some, writing about immigrant labor on Labor Day might seem un-American."

We often hear the platitude, "America is nation of immigrations" to justify bad policy. Have you ever heard "America is a nation of guest workers"? The article attempts to justify non-immigrant guest worker programs through immigration history.

2. Doctoral Candidates and the like

This is right off the pages of the lobbyists' press materials. No one every justifies the H-1B program by looking.... at the H-1B program. You see Immigrants like Andy Grove and Sergei Brin were part of successful startups ERGO we need more H-1B guest worker visas. But you *NEVER* see the names of people on H-1B visas or who originally came on H-1B visas.

The non sequitur fallacy.

Instead, we have to point to odd statistics such as, 60% of engineering doctoral degrees go to foreign students ERGO we need more H-1B guest workers visa.

Look closely at the original editorial. No data on the H-1B program itself is used to justify the program. In regard to the engineering degrees, Doctoral degrees in engineering are historically for people who want to teach in academia. Even in private research labs you rarely find people with PhDs in engineering. Search DICE or any engineering job board. There are virtually no jobs requiring a PhD.
(Nearly all jobs mentioning a PhD allow it to be used in place of a BS. e.g. BS in Math + PhD in Engineering).

The number of jobs in academia is extremely limited. So there few U.S.students get PhD degrees in Engineering. On the other hand, the Universities these days don't want to teach. They want grants and their professors would rather do research. They traditionally use graduate students as the source of cheap labor for these efforts. In order to pack their bloated graduate programs that are operating outside the free market, they pack them with foreign students.

(To make matters worse for the U.S., these foreign students with English as a second language because the ones who do the actual teaching for the U.S. students.)

3. The DMN tells us "These are jobs that not enough Americans possess the skills to perform." My cousin just got laid off and replaced by H-1B workers. AIG, SealLand, Bank of the Confederacy, FannieMae, Dun & Bradstreet .... have laid of hundreds of U.S. workers at a pop and replaced them with H-1B workers. How can U.S. workers not have the skills if they are training their replacements?

There is a well-known loophole in the law that allows employers to replace U.S. workers with H-1B workers. All attempt at closing it have been beaten back by U.S. industry. -- That clearly shows the true motivation behind this program.

4. The Nature of the H-1B Pool

So lets look at the actual H-1B program:

a. The biggest users of the H-1B program are the foreign offshoring companies that specialize in moving jobs out of the U.S. to foreign companies. For computer workers (which gets the majority of H-1B visas), offshoring makes up the majority of H-1B visas.

b. The majority of H-1B visas go to contract job shops.

c. H-1B computer workers make on average $12,000 a year less than U.S. workers in the same occupation and location.

d. Employers making skill-based prevailing wage claims rated the majority of workers at the LOWEST skill level. -- When Industry wants more cheap H-1B labor these are "highly skilled" workers. When it comes to determining? how much they have to pay, they suddenly become "low skilled". Funny how that works.

H-1B: The Best Legislation Money Can Buy!"

Did you know that when an employer submits a prevailing wage claim to the Department of Labor for approval, the law specifically limits the approval process to checking the form is filled out correctly? Did you know that for the DoL to launch an investigation of a company based upon suspicious behavior it takes the personal approval of the Secretary of Labor (something that has never happened)?

posted by Dick Hughes

All very true.