Thread: Senate Judiciary just approved selling U.S. tech jobs

From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Thursday 20OCT05 3:30 a.m.

Senate Judiciary just approved selling U.S. tech jobs to foreign workers

You must phone your disgust to Senators now ....

.... if you want to have a chance at stopping this travesty from passing into law.

.... if you want any hope of deterring these same Senators from future acts of aggression against American workers, you must call them now so they can feel the public condemnation.

The Senate Judiciary Committee just voted for Sen. Specter's (R-PA) plan to sell hundreds of thousands of additional work visas and permanent green cards to corporations for them to distribute to foreign workers so they can take American high-tech and professional jobs from American workers.

Their rationale was that the government needs the money.

These Senators behave this way because they sincerely believe that people like you will not hold them accountable ... that you will not even raise your voice, make a phone call, send a fax or take your fury to a talk show.

If we are ever to get some relief for American workers, we must overwhelm these sell-out Senators NOW.

1. Call these Senators at these phone numbers

The most important call for everybody is Sen. Specter who is the chairman of the committee and who invented this latest sell-out of American skilled workers.

=========================
Pennsylvania
=========================
Sen. Specter, Arlen
(202-224-4254)

Be sure to call any Senator from your own state.

If you have time, next call Senators from states that adjoin yours.

These are the Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who allowed Specter's plan to sell American jobs to foreign workers.

=========================
Delaware
=========================
Sen. Biden, Joseph
(202-224-5042)

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Illinois
=========================
Sen. Durbin, Richard
(202-224-2152)

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Kansas
=========================
Sen. Brownback, Sam
(202-224-6521)

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Massachusetts
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Sen. Kennedy, Edward
(202-224-4543)

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New York
=========================
Sen. Schumer, Charles
(202-224-6542)

=================
Ohio
=========================
Sen. DeWine, Mike
(202-224-2315)

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Pennsylvania
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Sen. Specter, Arlen
(202-224-4254)

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South Carolina
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Sen. Graham, Lindsey
(202-224-5972)

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Texas
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Sen. Cornyn, John
(202-224-2934)

=========================
Utah
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Sen. Hatch, Orrin
(202-224-5251)

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Vermont
=========================
Sen. Leahy, Patrick
(202-224-4242)

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Wisconsin
=========================
Sen. Feingold, Russell
(202-224-5323)
Sen. Kohl, Herb
(202-224-5653)

2. What to say on the phone

I think you can pretty well figure out for yourself what to say.

1. Let them know that you know what this Senator allowed the Senate Judiciary Committee to do today. Tell the staffer who answers that you are calling about the Specter/Kennedy proposal to sell massive new amounts of foreign-worker green cards and work visas to corporations in order to reduce budget deficits.

(We do not have any recorded votes to give you at this time. So don't use the words that the Senator "voted" for this. Rather, use the words that the Senator "allowed" this. We have left off the phone list the names of Senators who we believe did something to oppose Specter's plan.)

2. Let them know why you think Specter's plan is a travesty to American students studying for scientific, engineering and high-tech fields and a travesty to all Americans already in those fields.

3. Give you own connection to the issue.

4. Finish with a succinct statement such as: I oppose any action that increases green cards or visas for foreign workers. Give American workers a chance. Reduce all immigration.

3. The Spectre/Kennedy plan
to offset the budget deficit by selling American professional jobs to foreign workers

Senate Judiciary Chairman Specter (R-PA) and Sen. Kennedy (D-MA) have pushed through the committee a plan that is so callous that you may have difficulty believing it is true.

Because of the profligate spending by Congress and the President in recent years, each congressional committee is now charged with coming up with big spending cuts or big revenue increases.

The Judiciary Committee has now decided to balance their part of the budget mess on the backs of unemployed and underemployed high-tech and other professional workers -- and on the backs of American students who are currently studying to enter those occupations.

The plan by Specter and Kennedy is to sell hundreds of thousands of American professional jobs over the next several years to foreign workers -- or more precisely, to sell them to corporations which will then be allowed to import foreign workers instead of having to hire Americans.

See excerpt from the Congressional Quarterly Article below.

4. The CQ Today article explaining the Specter/Kennedy sell-out of American workers

CQ TODAY

Judiciary Committees Offer Dueling Proposals on Charges for Visas for Savings Targets

By Michael Sandler, CQ Staff

The House and Senate Judiciary committees hope to meet their relatively small mandatory savings targets by charging fees for visa programs that benefit businesses.

However, their initiatives differ enough to have the business community favor one and oppose the other.

The two committees must produce $300 million in savings over the next five years, a tiny fraction of the $34.7 billion in overall reductions called for in the budget resolution (H Con Res 95).

********

The business community favors an alternative proposal by Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

Specter's plan ... would allow the federal government to go back to October 1991 and recapture all unused H-1B visas ÂÂÂ* issued for specialty occupations that require a bachelor's degree or the equivalent.

Those visas would be re-issued and assessed a $500 fee. The estimated 60,000 unclaimed visas issued each year would generate $30 million a year, or half the amount needed over the five-year budget reconciliation period.

The rest would come from reclaiming unused employment-based immigrant visas for professional workers, going back to 2001. A $500 fee would be added to all employment-based visas.

5. NumbersUSA analysis of specifics of the Specter/Kennedy plan

As soon as we know the details of what the Senate Judiciary Committee did today, we will let you know.

We are aware, for example, that Sen. Sessions (R-AL) and Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) were successful in moderately limiting some of the damage that Specter proposed.

Your NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team says that the Specter/Kennedy plan proposed for Thursday's vote would have done the following:

1. It would raise the annual cap on permanent employment-based immigration by changing the formula as follows: employment-based visas = 140,000 + any unused family-based visas from the previous year + (the lesser of 90,000 or unused employment-based visas from any prior year).

2. It exempts the spouses and children of employment-based immigrants from counting against the numerical cap, beginning in 2004. (In 2003, workers got 36,210 visas, and their spouses and children got 45,927 visas. Total visas could have more than doubled under this bill.)

3. It adds a fee of $500 per petition for most employment-based visa petitions.

4. It allows alien spouses and children of citizens to adjust to Legal Permanent Resident status if the citizen abused them, died, or lost or renounced their citizenship; and it allows alien spouses and children of LPRs to adjust to LPR status if the LPR abused them or died.

5. Anytime the H-1B cap is reached, the lesser of 60,000 or any unused visas in any prior years are added to the cap.

This proposal follows an alarming pattern of Senators constantly using immigration to hammer American professionals in information-technology, health care, science and engineering. Last winter in an otherwise wonderful REAL ID bill, Sen. Hutchison (R-TX) blindsided all of us in a Joint Conference Committee by adding tens of thousands of permanent greencards for foreign nurses and other foreign professionals.

These actions usually are at the request of the all-owerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce for whom greed has no limit.

Nothing will change. The sell-out will occur. Senators will be encouraged to continue to find creative ways to knock down American workers. ....

UNLESS ......

Unless you make that phone call TODAY.

Only when these Senators hear a wall of noise from American voters that they demand NO MORE INCREASES IN IMMIGRATION -- ONLY REDUCTIONS IN IMMIGRATION -- will they stop these every-few-months shenanigans.

-- ROY

Oh No!!! Why do we keep voting for these blood-sucking politicians!!!

You'd think something innocent-sounding like "budget reconciliation" wouldn't mean the slash-and-burn of 100s of thousands of jobs... And what does the "judiciary committee" have to do with jobs?.. What's going on???

And they're selling our jobs for $750 per visa.

I don't think it's possible to determine what exactly the impact is, but let me take a guess.

The previous post from Numbers USA says that it's an additional 60,000 per year... But I found out from Rob Sanchez that it was bargained down to 30,000 per year... But all family members of the H-1B workers are also eligible to work, which based on historical data, would more than double the 30,000... So, we're still talking at least 60,000.

And this is already on top of the 65,000 annual H-1B workers each year... Furthermore, I learned on Lou Dobbs that the CIS accidentally broke the law this year by handing out 72,000 this year (when they're only allowed to hand out 65,000)... (Shouldn't there be some kind of punishment when they break the law?)

Furthermore, earlier in the year, the DHS handed out 20,000 extra H-1B visas this year, which were exempt from the cap... This was a special visa increase that was rushed through Congress at the end of last year... It was intended to be just for foreigners with graduate degrees... (I think this may be just a one-year increase, though.)

Furthermore, this doesn't count all the occupations which are exempt from the annual cap... I have no idea how many this is, but I'm sure it's 10s of thousands, if not over a 100,000 more... Let's just say it's 50,000 more.
http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/H1BFAQs. ... BsExempted

Not counted against the H-1B cap are applications for H-1B visas for employees of higher educational institutions, their related or affiliated nonprofit entities. K-12 schools are not exempted. Other exempt categories include applications for individuals employed by nonprofit research organizations or governmental research organizations...

Then, the law allows H-1B workers to apply for extensions every year, even when the theoretical visa time-limit of 6 years is up... When an H-1B worker applies for an extension, their new extension is exempt from the cap... So, this could easily mean over a 100,000 per year, because there were quite a few visas handed out in the 1990s.
http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/H1BFAQs. ... BsExempted

Then, there are all the other kinds of visas, from H-2B, L-1, J-1, etc... On Lou Dobbs, there was this report:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... dt.01.html

Another remarkable report from the General Accountability Office blasted the State Department for poor oversight of its 300,000 cultural exchange visas. That report found examples of the J visas being sought for work in a topless bar and as kitchen help and wait staff. That report also found companies were using exchange visitors instead of hiring American workers.

The J visas are supposed to be used by educational and governmental institutions... They can be used by students for practical on-the-job training.

I'm not sure how many work visas were issued in 2004, but in 2003, this article states that 865,000 were issued...
Some Lost Jobs Never Leave Home - May 2nd 2004
"...while about 150,000 guest workers were admitted in 1997, more than 865,000 were in 2003."

This is really incredible, because if you recall, 2003 was just after we had 2 horrible years in the job market when the nation had lost over 3 million jobs... Why were we importing so many foreign workers then?.. And it's amazing that (according to the article) in 1997, we only brought in 150,000 workers which was a year when the nation created over 3 million jobs...

(Employers are importing more workers now, because they've learned this is a way to cheapen the labor force... So, we're importing more workers at a time when we have fewer jobs... Does that make sense?)

I've read that we're importing nearly 1.5 million workers per year (including illegal immigrants)... This is amazing, considering that our economy is barely been able to wheeze out 150,000 jobs per month... We've only been creating about 2 million jobs per year... This means that 3 out of 4 jobs are going to foreign workers... (1.5 million / 2 million = 3 out of 4)

Getting back to H-1B, it applies to all jobs requiring a college degree... Here are just a few examples:
Architects, Musicians, and Artists
Teachers and college professors
Doctors, Nurses, Med-Techs, Therapists, Pharmacists
All engineers and Technicians
Surgical and Dental Assistants
Accountants and Administrators
Research Associates and Scientists
etc......

I'm not sure what job is safe from this onslought... People tend to think that doctors are safe, but I'm not sure... The powers-that-be want to be able to import an unlimited number of doctors too.
Subject: Unlimited H-1B visas for Medical Grads - Rob Sanchez - April 26th, 2005

"International Medical Graduates" (IMGs) are required to get an H-1B visa in order to practice as a physician after they finish their
residency. Hospitals, like most U.S. employers, are whining that they
can't get enough H-1B visas but it appears that they may have found a
way to beat the system. Immigration lawyers are advising hospitals to
set up nonprofit organizations that are exempt from the yearly cap.
Nonprofit research organizations can hire unlimited numbers of H-1B
visa holders because they are exempt from the yearly cap.

This scheme for circumventing the H-1B yearly cap is probably
fraudulent but it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to prove
that hospitals are using doctors from their nonprofits to practice
medicine. Surely patients would not have the wherewithal to figure out
that their doctor is employed by a nonprofit research organization and
not the hospital.

The increase in the numbers of foreign doctors could be substantial if
hospitals could implement this scheme. The U.S. medical industry is
very similar to high-tech in that they have an insatiable appetite for
foreign born doctors. Currently about 1/3 one-third of internal
medicine generalists and subspecialists are foreign born.

And then nurses and teachers are already getting hammered:
Some Lost Jobs Never Leave Home - May 2nd 2004
"Like IT professionals, American nurses and teachers are starting to feel the pinch from foreign competition. ... Stephanie Tabone, of the Texas Nurses Association, charges that hospitals choose to hire foreign nurses to avoid improving working conditions and raising pay for American nurses. 'Hospitals can bring in even very experienced nurses from abroad, and call them entry level, so they can get away with paying them less,' she says."

Well, I called my senator Dick Durbin on Wednesday, Oct 19th... The staffer had not even heard of Numbers USA... You'd think that a lot of people would be working on this issue, but not really... According to Numbers USA, they only sent their alert to 4,983 activists who expressed interest in H-1B visa... I wonder how many people called?

Oh, and I forget to mention that over a 100,000 green cards will be approved by this proposed legislation by the Judiciary Committee... Also, as the bill works its way through Congress, no doubt that our Congress people will increase the size of this labor-related corporate welfare.

Once again, here's Roy Beck's call to action:
"Only when these Senators hear a wall of noise from American voters that they demand NO MORE INCREASES IN IMMIGRATION -- ONLY REDUCTIONS IN IMMIGRATION -- will they stop these every-few-months shenanigans."

Call Senator Specter... Call your own senators too... (See the Numbers USA article above for more encouragement.)

Zero immigration is too high... We need net outflows of illegals... In addition, all work visas should be allowed to expire and the foreign workers should be sent home.