Thread: U.S. Visa Limits Hit Indian Workers

"Our immigration system is upside down, we need to get the third world low skilled and un-educated legal and illegals, out of our country. We have imported enough poverty. We can't afford it and then really why should we be saddled with the debt they incur? Instead of the current system, we need to bring in people with skills, talents and abilites that can actually help our country. People that we need that won't replace American workers."

Latino Man: I've been a computer engineer for over twenty five years. The H1B program and other high tech work visa's are not about skills, talents and abilities. They are about importing cheap labor. Please do not fall for the lobbyist/think tank argument that we need these people because Americans are not smart enough to do these jobs. American students are smart enough to stay away from high tech degrees because they absolutely understand that 50% of their graduating class will consist of foreigners who will take any wage/job to become a citizen.

Welcome to ALIPAC Red2008!

Glad to be here!!

Good article and debate here: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/co ... 331942.htm

It's Time to Overhaul H-1B Visas
We need to build a skilled-immigrant policy that will help our economy thrive
By Ron Hira

BW Magazine
Housing: Signs of Life
GE's Jeffrey Immelt: All Boxed In
A Boom for Tax Prep
News You Need to Know
Consumers and Businesses Rebalance the Books
This Issue
April 13, 2009

Signs of Life
Previous IssueNext Issue
Story Tools
post a comment
e-mail this story
print this story
order a reprint
suggest a story
digg this
save to del.icio.us
linkedin connections Reading the editorial pages of America's major dailies, you'd think the economic recovery depended on granting plenty of temporary work visas to skilled foreigners. After Congress voted in February to limit the use of these H-1B visas by financial firms getting taxpayer bailout money, The Washington Post called the provision (part of the 2009 American Recovery & Reinvestment Act) "antithetical to innovation and domestic prosperity." The Wall Street Journal criticized the move in an editorial headlined "Turning Away Talent." In The New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman simply called it "S-T-U-P-I-D."

Such advocacy presents a false choice: Keep the program as it is or risk losing exceptional foreign workers.

As employers are sending off their H-1B visa requests for fiscal year 2010—and with some in Congress considering an overhaul of the program—it's time to dispel the myths about H-1Bs. We need to mend this troubled program and look beyond it to create a comprehensive skilled-immigrant policy that helps our economy thrive.

What myths distort the H-1B debate? The biggest may be that employers can hire H-1B visa holders only when there is no American for the job. The program, run by the U.S. Labor and Homeland Security Dept., has no such constraint. Nor do employers getting the visas have to demonstrate a shortage of U.S. workers in their field.

Indeed, they can opt not to recruit American candidates and to give preference to foreign workers. As the Labor Dept. states in its 2006-2011 Strategic Plan: "H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker." This is not just a hypothetical possibility. According to news reports, a number of major U.S. companies require American employees, as a condition of their severance pay, to train H-1B workers to do the work they do. This process, often called "knowledge transfer," is a key step in offshoring the tasks to a low-cost country.

Another myth: H-1B workers are the world's best and brightest. While some are truly exceptional, they make up a small share of the visa holders. The minimum degree required to hold an H-1B visa is a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience, hardly a rare commodity. Instead, companies frequently turn to H-1Bs because they can be paid below-market wages. This contradicts the visa program's intent (and helps push wages down for American employees). But it is a common practice, given the gaping loopholes in the regulations.

In 2008 the Labor Dept. certified more than 5,000 applications for H-1B positions paying less than $15 an hour. In 2005, the latest year for which there are demographic statistics for the program, the median yearly wage for new H-1B recipients, including the many with master's degrees and years of experience, was $50,000. That's comparable to the $51,000 median salary paid to entry-level U.S. workers with only a bachelor's degree in the field.

Then there's the mistaken belief that granting H-1B visas helps prevent the outsourcing of American jobs. In fact, the program is expediting that offshoring, and not just because of "knowledge transfer." Offshore outsourcing firms with U.S. operations, including Infosys (INFY) and Wipro Technologies (WIT), now dominate the top ranks of employers getting H-1B workers. In 2008, such firms accounted for 7 of the top 10 H-1B visa recipients, getting almost 12,000 of the 85,000 quota. They use their U.S. operations to train their foreign workers, who learn more about U.S. clients and then rotate back to their home countries to provide service more effectively.

Perhaps the most dangerous myth of all is that the H-1B program has the same advantages for foreign workers—and the economy—as permanent immigration does.

High-skill immigrants who stay permanently in the U.S. make enormous contributions to the economy through their work, research, and entrepreneurialism. But the H-1B is a temporary work permit, one that allows participating foreigners to be mistreated. The visa, remember, is held by the employer, not the worker. That considerably diminishes the H-1B holder's bargaining power for better wages and working conditions.

Some H-1B workers are eventually sponsored for permanent residency, but, again, this is at the discretion of their employers. Because the number of guest workers far exceeds the number of available employment-based green cards, H-1B workers can get stuck where they are for as long as 10 years, with no ability to switch employers or even get a promotion.

The H-1B program can be cleaned up by closing loopholes and increasing oversight. Senators Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) are expected to reintroduce a version of last year's bipartisan reform bill in the coming weeks. Passed into law, it would require employers to try to hire Americans first and to pay H-1B workers market wages. It would also bar employers from replacing American workers with H-1B holders. Perhaps most important, it would create a random-audit process to ensure compliance with the rules.

Such common-sense fixes would provide employers with access to top foreign talent while treating the workers in a way that encourages them to settle in the U.S. But it's not enough.

We must also work on a comprehensive approach to permanent skilled immigration. This should include a merit-point system like the ones used in Canada and Britain, where immigrants working in needed occupations can move up the queue. It should also involve the creation of an independent board to gauge, at regular intervals, how many immigrants we can absorb without hurting the job prospects of American workers.

Then, just as the Federal Reserve oversees the supply of money, we could rationally regulate the flow of workers being welcomed primarily for economic reasons.

Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology, is co-author, with Anil Hira, of Outsourcing America.

EMERGENCY IN ARKANSAS!! PLEASE HELP!!!

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-152539.html

Originally Posted by red2008

Latino Man: I've been a computer engineer for over twenty five years. The H1B program and other high tech work visa's are not about skills, talents and abilities. They are about importing cheap labor. Please do not fall for the lobbyist/think tank argument that we need these people because Americans are not smart enough to do these jobs. American students are smart enough to stay away from high tech degrees because they absolutely understand that 50% of their graduating class will consist of foreigners who will take any wage/job to become a citizen.

Welcome red2008! This is the first post I've noticed from you and every word it is spot on. I'm a software/computer engineer as well and have seen quite a bit.

I started writing an essay to put here, but decided it was just making me too upset. All those H1B's and offshoring memories...

For those employeers out there, I have to say that sometimes you get what you pay for.

Originally Posted by red2008

"Our immigration system is upside down, we need to get the third world low skilled and un-educated legal and illegals, out of our country. We have imported enough poverty. We can't afford it and then really why should we be saddled with the debt they incur? Instead of the current system, we need to bring in people with skills, talents and abilites that can actually help our country. People that we need that won't replace American workers."

Latino Man: I've been a computer engineer for over twenty five years. The H1B program and other high tech work visa's are not about skills, talents and abilities. They are about importing cheap labor. Please do not fall for the lobbyist/think tank argument that we need these people because Americans are not smart enough to do these jobs. American students are smart enough to stay away from high tech degrees because they absolutely understand that 50% of their graduating class will consist of foreigners who will take any wage/job to become a citizen.

You quoted ELE, not me, but still I agree as I said in my post. As a software engineer myself I'd prefer we give these jobs to people like you and me who most of the time, are more qualified than the foreign alternative. But if it's true that there's a shortage of people like us (which you say is an outright lie by the lobbyists) then the country has to import that labor, but the government must mandate they be paid the same so that we as American workers can compete fairly.

Silence is not always golden; when it comes to country.

"We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties."
James Madison

Welcome, red2008! And apparently with our globalization, NWO track, it seems like no job is safe for Americans. I have read that some hospitals and clinics are finding it cheaper to send a person's medical test results to be reviewed by doctors in India. One editor of a small California weekly (Palm Springs, I think) also decided to fire a couple of reporters and decided to send minutes of council meetings to India to be written into news stories. As much as I searched, there were no follow-up stories, nor were they distributed too widely. Almost flashes in the pan, a fire that was effectively put out.