Thread: CSpan2: Senate Convenes 7:35am Pacific

Voting on Sanders Amendment:

( to increase H1b application fees and use funds for scholarships for US students in areas of high-need; from $1500/per visa app. to $5000 and some cases $10000):

Yeas: 59

Neas: 35

Result: Passed ! (good news)

[Misc commentary/notes: -forthcoming]

This could of been the death nail that kills this thing. This shows that they are starting to come apart.

Alas, no more fun at their expense for a while. Their site claims to have gone down. I'm going to go check from another machine, though - I might just have gotten banned with extreme prejudice.

Voting on Vitter Amendment (the granting of visa - a de facto 'amnesty' to IAs that arrived before a certain date - 2005?)

Most of the votes are (unsurprisingly) no.

I doubt it will pass, but...at least they'll be on record as supporting amnesty!


Voting Results

Yeas: 29

Neas: 66

Result: Failed.

Originally Posted by PhredE

Voting on Sanders Amendment:

( to increase H1b application fees and use funds for scholarships for US students in areas of high-need; from $1500/per visa app. to $5000 and some cases $10000):

Yeas: 59

Neas: 35

Result: Passed ! (good news)

[Misc commentary/notes: -forthcoming]

Don't quite understand the whole thing, but if it is good for us, then great!

Can you see if Kennedy voted yes? I am assuming he did.

Byrd (D-WV) has floor...

Originally Posted by Matthewcloseborders

This could of been the death nail that kills this thing. This shows that they are starting to come apart.

Really?

very interesting.

So we are starting to see some division on this bill?

I just saw on Fox news where Akunue (SP.) CHANGED his vote after Kennedy talked to him. Wasn't the 48-49 on guest workers.

Originally Posted by the_patriot

Originally Posted by PhredE

Voting on Sanders Amendment:

( to increase H1b application fees and use funds for scholarships for US students in areas of high-need; from $1500/per visa app. to $5000 and some cases $10000):

Yeas: 59

Neas: 35

Result: Passed ! (good news)

[Misc commentary/notes: -forthcoming]

Don't quite understand the whole thing, but if it is good for us, then great!

Can you see if Kennedy voted yes? I am assuming he did.

Hi there the_Patriot: I believe he did.

This amendment was pretty minor and inconsequential in the larger scope of things. To me, at least, it would be considered a 'no brainer'.

Those voting for will undoubtedly take some heat from large corps., but most people seem to be just fine with small fee increases - most of which don't affect the voters themselves.

Yes, it is a good, if modest step. It calls the bluff of those who claim that the foreign workers are needed because we have a shortage, or because their skills and work ethic are so superior. If that is true, then they're worth the extra money, right? But over on the other side they are grousing because we all know that would add 5K to the cost of bringing in an H-1B. That will make employers think twice in marginal, mass cases. And/or it may cut down their compensation rates to make up for it, since we know that the major applicants for H-1B visas are the international bodyshops. How low would they go? Remember the lawsuit against Tata is still going on - they made their US-located Indian employees hand over their tax refund checks. Bet that helped their bottom line when it came to contract bid time!

They are claiming we shot ourselves in the butt because they CLAIM the scholarships will surely mostly go to foreign kids because goodness knows our kids don't know nothing about science or math. But they're still mad and that's good.