An Academic's Labor Helps Fight H-1B Visas

[OhioChick]

Norm Matloff, a computer science professor with a Chinese-born wife, says the U.S. skilled-immigrant visa system exploits workers everywhere

June 28, 2009, 8:25PM EST

Not many computer science professors are activists on immigration policy. But Norm Matloff of the University of California, Davis wears both hats. He has been a vocal critic of the H-1B visa program for skilled immigrants since the mid-1990s, and now maintains a Web page and e-mail listserv discussing offshoring and the H-1B visa program, which he calls a "sham." He says his motivation is to protect and preserve tech job opportunities for the students he teaches.

"I have no personal stake in any of this," says Matloff, who is 60. "If the H-1B program were disbanded tomorrow, my personal well-being would not improve one iota. when I see something that is not right and about which I know something, I tend to speak out. On this issue, I know where the bodies are buried."

The H-1B visa program inspires heated debate, especially online. The program is controversial for a number of reasons. Some critics say the program allows U.S. companies to import cheaper labor, dampening wages and displacing U.S. workers. Others say it facilitates outsourcing, as it allows Indian-born tech workers to train in the U.S. and then return home and perform the work there. Still others point to mounting evidence of fraud in the program and a lack of government oversight.

"De Facto Indentured Servants"
Matloff stresses that the problem is not fraud or crime but the H-1B visa law itself. He says that the law as currently written allows H-1B visa holders to receive below-market wages. The policy also allows for age discrimination as older U.S. tech workers are displaced by a younger workforce from abroad. "Though the industry lobbyists portray it as a remedy for labor shortages and as a means of hiring 'the best and the brightest' from around the world, the visa is used to access workers that cost less and are de facto indentured servants," Matloff writes on his blog.

Matloff has written extensively about the effects of globalization and offshoring on U.S. IT workers and has been quoted on the issue in most major media outlets. He has also testified before Congress as an expert on the work visa law. Some of his most influential academic work includes a fall 2003 article in the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform on the H-1B work visa called "On the Need for Reform of the H-1B Nonimmigrant Work Visa in Computer-Related Occupations." A 2006 article that linked H-1B visas to age discrimination in the computer industry was published by the California Labor & Employment Law Review.

As are most advocates on immigration issues, Matloff is a controversial figure. He's admired by supporters—including activists on H-1B visa issues—but criticized by other academics who don't share his views and who chafe at his often-abrasive rhetorical style. Critics also suggest there could be a xenophobic undertone implicit in his critique of the H-1B visa program. Matloff posts opinionated blog entries on the Web site of Numbers USA, a group calling for lower levels of immigration. His writing prompted one tech worker, Arthur Hu of Bothell, Wash., to create a Web page criticizing Matloff, whom he calls the "Hatchet Man of Asian Immigration."

More: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db20090626_585028.htm

[FreakinDJ]

1. H1B was the Brainchild of the Electronics Manufacturing Association

They lobbied hard and bought and paid for those H1B laws