http://www.charlotteconservative.com/in ... hreatened/


Article By Writer Michael Kraft

Author: Michael Kraft
Published: June 18, 2007

We had a recent comment posted by a reader that is also a preofessional in the human resources industry. It is safe to assume this poster knows more about office atmosphere hiring than the senators that will be affecting his lifestyle with their amnesty bill.

We thank this contributor with the use of their sentiments as a featured editorial.

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In addition to legalizing the status of those who entered this country illegally, this bill also threatens the careers of American white collar workers because it would greatly increase the number of H-1B visas issued to foreign professional workers.

As a Human Resources professional, I see first hand how the H-1B visa and employment based green card programs actually work together to drive U.S. white collar workers from their jobs and even from their careers. To begin with, there is virtually nothing in the law that prevents employers from hiring H-1Bers for open positions even if qualified Americans are available and willing to do the work. Americans are routinely laid off and replaced with lower paid H-1Bers also. In these cases, Americans have practically no legal recourse available under current law.

H-1B is also a dual intent visa, so an employer may sponsor an H-1Ber for an EB green card for legal permanent resident status. When a company seeks to sponsor a foreign worker for an EB green card, they are required by law to demonstrate a good faith effort to recruit Americans first. This process is called labor certification. But employers routinely game the labor certification process for green card sponsorship to defraud even well qualified citizen job applicants in favor of low wage foreigners. They use fake job ads and/or bad faith interviews of American citizens to convince the federal government that they tried to find American workers first. These practices are common in high tech and even in some non-tech industries, but HR people are told to keep quiet about it or lose their jobs.

I would be in favor of a program that issues a small number of self-sponsoring green cards for truly innovative foreign nationals on a competitive basis. But very few of the H-1Bers or green card applicants that I have seen in 10+ years even come close to being truly innovative. Most are just practitioners with skills that are actually quite common among the domestic workforce. The only thing special about these foreigners is that they will work for substantially less than Americans in order to have a chance to become legal permanent residents. Thus they are used by management to sweeten corporate balance sheets.

The prevailing wage regulations are supposed to insure that foreign nationals are paid the same as their American counterparts in the same job functions, but these regulations are so riddled with loopholes that they are a bad joke.

Since my work allows me to have access to salary records, I can tell you that the labor cost savings for H-1Bers and green card applicants is substantially greater than the costs of filing the applications with the government.

Citizens who call to oppose this bill should also demand that both the H-1B and employment based green card programs be abolished in their current form.