US may hike H-1Bs, unveil new visa for the unskilled

[OhioChick]

< WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 07, 2007 01:50:43 AM>

NEW DELHI: An increase in the number of non-immigrant temporary skilled worker (H-1B) visas and employment-based immigration visas, or green cards, may be on the cards.

The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, currently being considered by the US Congress, has provisions that allow for such an increase. An amendment introduced in the Senate by Senators Edward Kennedy and Senator John Kerry echoes the provisions of the McCain/Kennedy Bill (S 2611) and the Skill Bill introduced in the 109th Congress.

The Senate passed the amendment by voice vote and the ‘Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007’ (S 2) was passed by a 94-3 vote. There seem to be huge increases to H-1B and employer-based green cards. The amendment also proposes to create a new non-immigrant visa, or guest worker visa, for unskilled workers called an H-5. The H-5 visa is a pathway for amnesty.

If the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 passed by the Senate has incorporated the provisions of the S 2611 introduced in the last Congress then it would mean the number of H-1B visas on offer will increase from the current level of 65,000 to 115,000 in the first year.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/US_may_hike_H-1Bs_unveil_new_visa_for_the_unskilled/articleshow/1569190.cms

[fasttense]

1. First of all the US Immigration department is giving out

thousands more visas than have been authorized by congress. So the bushes just ignore any laws they don't like anyway, so what's the use of authorizing more visas?

Next, if US workers are falling behind due to lack of decent education, then why would the US want to bring in more people to compete for the few (according to corporatist) low skill jobs we currently have? The logic of it escapes me. But you know, the chant. Free trade, free trade, free trade.

The truth is we have millions of low skill McJobs and the H-5 visas will make it easier for corporations to get out from under the small minimum wage increase.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

3. How do you know that USCIS is giving out more H-1Bs

than allowed? Link? (note: I am an immigration specialist with several years of experience with non-immigrant visas including the H).

[treestar]

10. Untrue

They can't possibly do that.

[AnneD]

2. Our jobs...

are now being oursourced on our own soil. This is killing Nursing in this country. During this shortage they are closing Nursing school and importing Nurses rather that train and hire folks in this country.:mad:

[mopinko]

9. really one of the most dispicable things we do.

insane. taking nurses from countries where there is such poor health care. :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[area51]

11. nursing

I'd heard this was happening to the nursing profession. Every time I've visited my relative when he's in the hospital, I keep hearing nurses' accents from many places outside the U.S. I'd like to see all offshoring & inshoring (which is what's happening to hurses) stopped.

Nurses rock. :yourock:

[AnneD]

25. Thanks for the support and observations...

All Nurses want to do is improve patient safety through education, a sane work environment, and a decent salary that considers an education level and experience. We also want Nursing School to be funded to something closer in federal dollars to the level of Medical schools (it is after all an essential occupation). If we can accomplish this, there will more Nurses educated and more desirable jobs available citizens. No more shortage.

[antigop]

4. Kennedy and Kerry are behind this? n/t

[BayCityProgressive]

5. if so

just goes to show, none of them are for "us".

[antigop]

6. I lost my respect for Kennedy when he sold us out on the pension bill n/t

[MH1]

26. Please read excellent post below - sheds a new light -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2720558&mesg_id=2722190

I, too, am confused about H vs L visas. I didn't like this move on its face, but I recognize that I don't know everything there is to know about the issue.

[barb162]

39. Yeah, the biggest liberals are voting against American labor!?!

SICK!

[youngdem]

7. This is an assault on the Middle Class

And all the proof you need of that is that Bushco is pushing it.

There are NO jobs Americans don't want. There are just jobs that pay too little.

Laws like this will destroy the middle class by flooding the market with immigrants to whom $9/hr sounds like a lot, and they will gobble up the last of the Blue-Collar middle class.

We must take care of our own better than we are. We won't be able to undo this once it happens.

Beware. I know many on this board will have a hard on for this.

[beachmom]

29. Well my husband came here on an H1-B visa, and now he is

an American citizen. My life would have been completely different had there not been an H1-B visa program, and I'm not sure I would have had children. Gotta love the anti-immigrant sentiment around here. Just remember when you say "take care of our own", you're insulting fellow DUers who may be immigrants who came to this country on these visas. And for the record, my husband was most certainly NOT an indentured servant, and was paid properly for his job.

[LiberalEsto]

8. Meanwhile Fannie Mae just laid off 45

They laid off 45 IT people today. These people will almost certainly get replaced with lower paid H1B workers, since that's what Fannie has been doing for years. Nearly all their IT people in Herndon, VA are Indians here on H1B visas.

Meanwhile the CEO just gave himself a 25% pay increase last week.

:mad:

[Occulus]

12. I was once in a chat room in which an economics major was touting his job

He was assisting in offshoring operations for a major company of some sort- he never said which. He got very, very quiet when I told him I considered offshoring to be a kind of economic treason.

As I recall, he didn't say anything else the entire time I was in the room.

We have to start calling this what it is. Offshoring American jobs is economic treason.

[LiberalEsto]

24. Economic treason -- the perfect name for it

Every US company that lays off American workers and replaces them with cheap foreign labor should lose every local, state and federal tax break and subsidy that it receives. That should be the law, period.

I wish Congress would pass a bill to this effect, but of course B*sh WANTS more H1B visa workers so his rich pals can save money and award themselves obscene annual raises.

Fannie Mae in Washington DC does not pay a penny in property taxes to the city (even though DC schools are falling apart and desperately need repairs). Heaven only knows what other kinds of tax breaks Fannie gets, but I'm sure they run in the millions, including property tax breaks at its other locations around the US.

Fannie Mae has been laying off its American IT workers for years, replacing them with lower-paid foreigners on H1B visas. Practically its entire IT department in Herndon, VA is Indians on H1Bs. Meanwhile, the laid-off American IT professionals can't find other jobs that pay anywhere near what they were making.

Why should their -- and our -- tax dollars help subsidize companies that lay off Americans and bring in cheap foreign labor? This is indeed economic treason!

[OhioChick]

13. Work Visas May Work Against the U.S.

February 8, 2007, 12:00AM EST
Indian outsourcers file the most applications for temporary H-1B visas. Are they using them to train staff for jobs abroad?


America's visa program for temporary workers was originally set up to allow U.S. companies to bring skilled workers who are in short supply to the U.S. Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM), Intel (INTC), Oracle (ORCL), and Sun Microsystems (SUNW) have been active participants in the program, hiring foreign workers for specialized computer programming jobs and positions managing projects with overseas staff.

The visas, known as H-1Bs, are popular enough that President George W. Bush is calling for an increase in the cap on the number of workers who can come to the U.S. under the program. "We've got to expand what's called H-1B visas," he said in a January speech. "It makes no sense to say to a young scientist in India, you can't come to America to help this develop technologies that help us deal with our problems."

Outsourcing Conduit…

But a review of new information from the federal government suggests that the companies benefiting most from the temporary worker program aren't U.S. companies at all. Rather, they appear to be Indian outsourcing firms, which often hire workers from India to train in the U.S. before returning home to work. Data for the fiscal year 2006, which ended last September, show that 7 of the top 10 applicants for H-1B visas are Indian companies. Giants Infosys Technologies (INFY) and Wipro (WIT) took the top two spots, with 22,600 and 19,400 applications, respectively. The company with the third most applications is Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH), which is based in Teaneck, N.J., but has most of its operations in India. All three companies provide services to U.S. companies from India, including technology support and back-office processing.

The only other U.S. companies among the top 10 are the accounting and consulting firm Deloitte & Touche and consultancy Accenture (ACN). They rank seventh and ninth, with 8,000 and 7,000 applications, respectively.

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/feb2007/db20070208_553356.htm

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

15. The problem is not H-1Bs

(disclosure: I am an immigration specialist with one of the US companies mentioned above). It's the L visa category. There is no prevailing wage requirement with the L. There is no need for the employer to maintain documentation on wage and benefits and there is no chance for audits. Ls are intracompany transfer visas; they are split into two further categories: L-1B (specialized knowledge) and L-1A (managers/executives). This is the most common way to bring in people from a subsidiary/branch or affiliated company overseas to work in the U.S.

My employer in fact does not process a lot of H-1Bs for several reasons: first, the fees are higher; second, a person can come in the US and then immediately switch to a competitor (something you can't do with the L visas); and, third, there is no prevailing wage required. Being familiar with Cognizant, one of the companies mentioned in the article, knowing that the great majority (around 80%) of visas filed are Ls, I think this article is confusing the H with the L visas.

H and L visas are quite different, with very different requirements.

[w4rma]

16. Thanks for that information. H-type visas, are still used in extensively in other companies other

than yours, however.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

21. Yes, they are BUT

the major companies indicated above, Microsoft, IBM, etc. use a lot of Ls from their foreign subsidiaries, especially in India. Believe me, I work for one of these companies (the one that starts with I). It's cheaper for the company and there are fewer documentation/attestation requirements, not to mention the wage issue.

[cadmium]

37. Are the H visa numbers just overdue

for increase or are the proposed increases excessive?

re nursing: Nursing School programs have been accelerated to the point where many American grads are undereducated--nursing attrition is high in the most demanding (ie general medical-surgical inpt) jobs. On one hand H visa nurses dilute the nursing pool, but if as shortages get too bad hospital and nursing school lobbies push to ease regulations on unlicensed personnel.

[OhioChick]

17. So....

If x-1B's are "capped", then you lose your job after 3 months?

[Lasher]

20. There are quotas on H-1B visas

The 65,000 H-1B visa quota for FY 2007, which began on October 1, 2006, was exhausted within 2 months.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060602-6971.html

Since employers could apply as soon as April 1, 2006 (six months before the actual start date of the visa), the limit was reached four months before FY 2007 ever started.

http://www.workpermit.com/us/us_h1b.htm

There is no annual quota on L-1 visas. This might be another reason you are processing more L-1 visas than H-1Bs.

I agree that there is confusion regarding this issue. I think most people identify with the H-1B label without knowing much about the existence of other non-immigrant visa programs.

http://www.immigralaw.com/english/categories.shtml

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

23. No. the reasons for processing more Ls than Hs

do not really have anything to do with the cap (the cap is certainly a reason, but not the major one; the requirements for the H visa are very different from those of an L visa; the big difference is of course the intracompany transfer issue).

I've been doing this type of immigration for well over a decade and the shift from H to L has been very noticeable, especially in the last 3 years or so. Large companies, such as my current employer, prefer establishing foreign subsidiaries, especially in India, and then import these workers on a L-1B (specialized knowledge), rather than an H, because it is cheaper to file L visas.

The fee for a regular L visa (not a blanket) is, for large employers, $190 plus a $500 anti-fraud fee. For an H-1B, it's $500 and $1,190 (large employers; less for smaller ones). These are filing fees only. The H also requires an educational evaluation if a degree is from a foreign school. It's even cheaper by getting a blanket L visa approved (in essence, a blanket visa allows large corporations to bring in countless workers in that visa category - the visa package does not need approval by USCIS and the foreign national goes to obtain the visa directly at the U.S. consulate abroad). It also discourages workers from immediately finding employment with a competitor.

Moreover, there is no issue of having to meet 100% of the prevailing wage, having to maintain all wage/benefits documentation in case of a DOL audit, etc.

[Lasher]

27. I can see why L-1 visas would be popular

But still, I'm pretty sure that if there were an annual quota of 65,000 on L-1 visas, the number processed each year would be pretty much the same as H-1Bs.

[w4rma]

14. Then the hell with that bill. (nt)

[Thor_MN]

18. We need more H1-CEO visas

If Americans won't work as CEOs for less than 10X what the median employees at that company make, there is a severe shortage of CEO talent. So I say rather than more H1-Bs, we open the floodgates on visas for CEOs, directors, vice presidents, etc. - generally all executive level positions. Wage pressure should reduce, resulting in huge cost savings for corporations. Earnings would increase, stocks prices should rebound on the good news and *'s disastrous effects on the stock markets should start to mend.

I'm sure that we could find plenty of people willing to come to the US for a limited period of time to take on the jobs that Americans just aren't willing to do at a normal living wage.

[Toucano]

28. I like this idea! n-t

[Odin2005]

19. Don't employers basically ignore the rights of people with these visas?

I recently heard a news report of legal Hispanic immigrants with those visas being treated like slaves by an employer in Connecticut.

[beachmom]

30. I heard that, too. That's H2-B visas, and the problem is not with

having the visas. The problem is there is ZERO accountability with that program. My husband, who is in the high tech field, came here on an H1B visa, and I am thankful for the program.

[w4rma]

31. That's another good reason not to increase the cap on a "broken" program. (nt)

[beachmom]

32. Wrong -- that's H "2" B visa, not H1 B visa. And as I have stated

above, my husband came here on an H1 B visa and it worked wonderfully for him. So let's not turn one visa program into another, and pretend that it harms foreign workers when, in fact, it has HELPED many foreign workers who did well and had a nice experience in the U.S. Some like my hubby, married Americans or got green cards, while others went home at the end of their adventure. I'm tired of the mischaracterizations of the H1B visa program as being some kind of slave program to deprive Americans of their jobs by peasants from foreign countries, when that is absolutely bogus.

[cap]

33. look at zazona.com and you will understand the objections

H1bs were usually making much less than the going rate for Americans. There is no skill shortage in Zazona has put in FOIA requests for the H1b applications and has the salary figures for each application. America for computer scientists any more. For grins and giggles, put up a job ad and you will get hundreds of responses from well qualified and over qualified applicants.

I am glad YOUR husband found a righteous employer during the boom times. All too many of the employers do not pay properly.

[Thor_MN]

36. I'm glad that it worked out well for you and your husband, however

as someone who lost their job to someone on an H1-B visa, I can't be in favor of it. That was 6 years ago and I now make about 90% of what I was being paid then. I consider myself very fortunate to be making that much. H1-B visas have been a disaster to anyone in the IT field.

[Vidar]

22. Another weapon for the class war.

[lumberjack_jeff]

34. What is the rate of jobs creation?

I guarantee it's less than domestic population growth + 115,000.

Immigration from any source should not exceed our economy's ability to employ them.

[Robert Oak]

35. False, this story is false

The Minimum Wage Act, H.R. 2 as amended by the Senate, does NOT have H-1B Visa increases in it.

Sen. Kennedy and Kerry (yes our Kerry) tried to introduce S.Admt 180 but it was tabled, which means
killed. This amendment was the ridiciulous "comprehensive immigration bill" or S.2611 from the 109th congress, which of course has basically unlimited H-1B Visas in it.

Unfortunately this got started because the only way to monitor Congress is to read the congressional record
in www.thomas.gov.

When one pulled up S.Admt 187, which passed by unanimous voice vote, the text of S.Admt 180 also came
up. It was so long, so volumous, one could not see the 2 sentence title where S.Admt left off and S.Admt 187 began.

Anyway, we're safe for about 15 more minutes until they try and this includes OUR DEMOCRATS to increase H-1B again.

Please write your representatives and while you are at it, ask them to sponsor or cosponsor
HR. 4378, The Defend the American Dream Act of 2005, from the 109th congress.

This bill will plug up the legal loopholes which allows employers to pay a H-1B Visa holder much less
than a US citizen/perm resident for the same job. It also will help out with massive age discrimination
in the field.

[barb162]

38. Bill Gates loves H-1 B visas as he fires Microsoft workers

(so he can hire the cheap foreign H1B labor)
This kind of shit is destroying this country. Why are the Democrats goig along with this?