US likely to raise H-1B visa cap (GOP screwing IT workers again!)

[JoeMemphis]

Proposals to allow more high-technology foreign workers into the US are gaining ground in Congress despite assertions by labour and anti-immigrant lobbies that plenty of Americans are available to fill the jobs.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Republican Senator Orin Hatch is pushing a plan to circumvent the 65,000 cap on H-1B temporary worker visas, under which large numbers of Indian and other foreign high-tech workers are employed in the US, by expanding exemptions, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday quoting Senate aides familiar with the talks.

http://sify.com/news/international/fullstory.php?id=13293386

[JoeMemphis]

1. ... and not a peep of protest from the Democrats

Note to Terry McAuliffe: This is a Democratic issue for the taking anda sure-fire winner. We know that Bush can't oppose big business, but we can.

[w4rma]

Dems need to *campaign* on opposing this. Dems need to make noise.

The U.S. is losing more and more jobs and the more folks who see proposals like this from the GOP the more folks will vote *against* the GOP.

Bullcrap like this as a comprimise won't cut it. $1,000 isn't going to pay for a new college degree. It won't even pay for many IT certifications especially with their associated classes:
She said any plan would include some added protection for US workers, including reinstating a $1,000 fee for each visa that would be used to pay for retraining American workers -- a strategy aimed at gaining Democratic agreement.

[JoeMemphis]

3. Here's the catch on that $1000 for "retraining"

Yep, that $1000 won't retrain anyone.

The kicker is that the $1000 won't go to a displaced American or green-card holder. It goes to a special fund within the Department of Labor for retraining US workers displaced by foreign guest workers or overseas job loss.

The * Administration has assessed that such a program was a failure and that money in that fund will be going to expedite immigration backlogs.

In the end, the US worker sees not one dime of the money nor one minute of the retraining it's earmarked for. U.S. workers get screwed, big business gets cheap labor, and the *-Cheney '04 campaign gets higher donations from their even wealthier CEO contributors.

Compassionate conservatism at work for ... certainly not us!

[lovedems]

18. My husbands MCSE alone cost 5K

and that doesn't include his Cisco cert. He has 7 different certifications and his employers paid for very few (not his MCSE)

[dfong63]

2. that man senator Hatch's stupidity is simply breathtaking

[1songbird]

4. Outsourcing

This is definitely an issue that the democrats should step up to the plate on. Not only are IT workers getting screwed but engineers are as well. Supposedly these guys help to make up Bush's base so what a great way to capture some republican and independent voters.

[schrodinger_I]

This issue again

I wish someone would get it through their thick skull that with American workers out of work, we do not need foreigners coming here and taking IT jobs. The argument that we need them because we have a shortage of skilled labor is total BS. The reality is that when someone is here on an H-1B, they cannot leave their job for 3 years. No job-hopping!!! I would rather see high turnover of Americans at tech companies than a bunch of foreigners coming over here and taking our jobs. Let them stay in China and India......

[JoeMemphis]

10. Bush is throwing a bone to his CEO buddies

cheap-labor conservatism

[LiviaOlivia]

12. Who's is doing the lobbying?

Do you know which corps. are working Hatch & Bushco on this?

[JoeMemphis]

13. Can't say for sure

I'm sure that the ITAA and its member cronies are behind this push for more H-1Bs. They were quite vocal about the Congress doing nothing and letting the H-1B caps revert back to 65,000. ITAA is a big supporter of the GOP.

I'll snoop some of the online news sources a bit more and see what I can find out. Buscho and Hatch are probably being offered some cool campaign ca$h for this little favor.

[JoeMemphis]

6. I'm one of those tech workers

They are starting to get politically aware. If Democrats don't make this an issue, they may start to believe Bush's crap about lower taxes while he's stabbing them in the back with more imported guest workers and silently supporting the offshore movement of tech jobs.

[SahaleArm]

5. Catch-22?

How do you balance immigration (legal and illegal) with jobs for american citizens (and Green Card Holders) without sounding protectionist and/or xenophobic? Take away the immigration of scientists from the last century and where would the US be today?

[union_maid]

7. Maybe so

but there are a lot of Americans who are not only out of work, but are also out of prospects. The job of government is to protect its citizens first of all. Democrats better make a big stink on this one.

[JoeMemphis]

8. H-1B is NOT immigration

H-1B is a guest worker program to allow someone a temporary stay in the US to fill a job shortage. H-1B is defined as a non-immigrant visa.

The obvious first comment is that there is no job shortage, especially in technology. Secondly H-1Bs are effectively "indentured servants", and are solely dependent on their employer for their stay in this country. That means, as Schrodinger pointed out, they cannot job-hop and be competitive in the job market. They have to be loyal to their employer no matter what or they find themselves with a one-way ticket home.

If H-1Bs had the freedom to unionize or job-hop, I'd be more for it the program. It also undermines the job opportunities that true immigrants to this country have to better their lives. I married an immigrant, and she's upset about the H-1B program as well. It limits her opportunities because companies are opting for indentured servitude instead of workers who are free to exercise their rights.

[foreigncorrespondent]

11. And count your lucky stars...

...that you had the right to marry your immigrant lover. My partner doesn't have that right, because we are a same sex couple. We are forced to live 8,000 miles apart and try to hold our relationship together with that distance and the fact we only see each other for a grand total of 28 days a year. We don't even get the holidays together.

As for the HB-1 visa program, I can't say anything about it, because I know it has been used by many same sex binational couples, to keep the foreign half in the country, so the couple don't have to experience the pain my partner and I are going through.

[belle]

19. Yeah, my best friend basically got screwed by his H1-B status

He'd come here for graduate school and decided he wanted to stay and work--there was nothing for him back home. After hitting various temp jobs, he was hired (by a newspaper aimed at other American immigrants/hypehnates from his country, not a techie outfit) with the promise of the visa--which specifies you can *only* work for said outfit, or one like it. They waited until his post-school one-year visa ran out while they kept him on the hook (they wouldn't pay for the visa), so he ended up out of status and essentially indentured to them (couldn't get another job w/out papers).

He also ended up being unable to see his dying father, as he couldn't get on a plane. Finally he cobbled together the money for the lawyer's fee and the visa fee and managed to get the visa, even with the expired status. Then the paper stopped paying him.

He tried to work his way into another paper--one of the very few employers which he could transfer to with his H1-B. The other paper promptly fired him altogether. The new paper promised him that they'd hire him fulltime after a trial period, if he worked out. Well, he's worked out well by anyone's standards--glowing letter of praise to the editor after his nearly every article, general acknowledgement that he's a terrific writer, the best they've had in ages----but the publisher still won't hire him. Probably mainly because he knows he doesn't have to.

So he's essentially working a fulltime job while being treated as a freelancer. One third the pay of the other employees, no health insurance, and oh, by the way, once again, no visa. He was completely freaking out last week, and I don't blame him at all. If he had money, things would be different; but he doesn't.

Oh, yes: also, he's gay and has a male partner of over four years. If said partner were female, or we didn't have anti-gay legislation, he'd be legal by now and able to work--or at least apply, like anyone else--anywhere he wanted to. But he's not, and he isn't. Screwed.

[lysergik]

9. Shrub needs a clue.

Big concept that I'm about to unveil, Shrubs head would probably explode when faced with such common sense.

H1B Visa's continue to help the American economy flounder and flop, while these visa holders send their monies overseas to support their families, while the outplaced American worker sits at home watching Jerry Springer pondering which possession they will need to part with next on Ebay to be able to pay their bills another month.

Lowering the cap on the H1B and other visas would lower the unemployment rate, and help rebuild the economy since the money being earned will be used HERE and put back into our businesses.

But this concept is far too hard for some idiot in the WH to understand, instead he stands around with his beedy little eyes and spouts untruths to the American public about how well the economy is recovering and how the unemployment rate is improving.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

14. Hatch!

read: Newman!

[JoeMemphis]

15. Here's who's pushing this legislation

In addition, said the Journal , immigration lawyers, officials and technology trade groups from India, and major US tech companies are pushing to raise the annual visa limit to more than 100,000.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=253972&Curpg=2

And look at how they plan to get it passed: attach it to a "must pass appropriations bill.

Any rule changes likely would be attached to a "must pass" appropriation bill.

Slime. Absolute compassionate conservative cheap labor Republican slime.

[Meshuga]

16. We have jobs being shipped to India...

I know as a fact that tech companies are moving some of their development shops to India because it's cheaper to operate and because they can get skill workers willing to work for cheaper wages.

I see that more of a threat than having these people come here to compete with home grown tech workers. I'm a software engineer myself and I feel more confortable having foreign nationals here competing with me than to have no control over my company moving overseas. My company already said moving some operation is a possibility. This sucks!

I think the software giants are happy to keep foreign workers out of the states because they can have them for a much discounted price in their native country.

This is a very complicated issue...

[Meshuga]

17. In addition...

We tech workers get screwed no matter what!