Questions for Mr. Cai Gao

Date: Friday, August 23, 2002 1:15 PM

*** H-1B NEWSLETTER ***

Get the Facts on H-1B at
www.ZaZona.com

Chinese H-1B Mr. Gao said "The U.S. government does not care at all about
us," said Gao, whose 5-year- old daughter and 3-year-old son are U.S.
citizens. "They just want to trash us, once we are not useful enough
anymore."

I would like to ask Mr. Gao these questions:

* How much did you care about the US worker you displaced when you came here
on an H-1B?

* U.S. citizens are routinely trashed by our government so that H-1Bs like
you can come here and work. Why did you think our government would treat you
any better?

* Why do you think we should care that you are now moving to Canada?

* The TN-NAFTA visa can be used by Canadian citizens to come to the US to
work and all it requires of the immigrant is for them to sign a piece of
paper on the border. Are you going to come back here using a TN visa when
you find out that Canadians don't want you either?

Note: Currently the TN-NAFTA visa only allows 1000 Mexicans to come to the
US per year. In 2004 all NAFTA restrictions will be lifted which means that
the number of Mexicans using the TN visa may be unlimited. The Trade
Promotion Authority (TPA) will allow Bush, or our next corporate owned
president, to make similar agreements with any country he chooses.

Call it coincidence if you will, but 2004 is when the H-1B limit goes down
to 65,000 per year. Is that because companies will use TN visas instead?

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/08/18/BU54073.DTL

Heading north as economy goes south
U.S. immigration policy has some foreign tech workers applying for residency
in Canada
Vanessa Hua, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, August 18, 2002
Š2002 San Francisco Chronicle.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/08/18/BU54073.DTL

Unemployed programmer Cai Gao believes he has found a place to live the
American dream: Canada.

Although the native of China has never visited Canada, he applied for
permanent residency north of the border. Pink-slipped by a Fremont Web
technology firm in December, Gao, 30, fears that his wife could be next.

Without employment, she would lose her H-1B visa -- the prized papers that
brought hundreds of thousands of skilled foreigners into the United States
during the tech boom to meet domestic labor shortages.

Gao worries they might not find an employer willing to sponsor a new visa at
a time when U.S. citizens are competing for the same spots.

At the height of the technology bubble, Canadian firms tried to lure foreign
workers away from Silicon Valley, without great success. Now, with the U.S.
economy going south, some engineers are heading north.

Neither Gao nor his wife has obtained U.S. permanent residency -- despite
following immigration laws and contributing thousands of dollars in income
tax,

he complained. Without a green card, he has trouble finding work and cannot
start his own company.

"The U.S. government does not care at all about us," said Gao, whose 5-year-
old daughter and 3-year-old son are U.S. citizens. "They just want to trash
us,

once we are not useful enough anymore."

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service said it enforces policies
set by Congress -- which in turn reflect the wishes of the American public.

Spokeswoman Sharon Rummery advised prospective immigrants to review the laws
of different countries and choose what suits them best.

Some Canadian law firms that specialize in immigration say inquiries have
more than doubled this year, compared with 2001.

Of the 250,346 new Canadian permanent residents last year, 40,296 hailed
from China and 27,812 from India -- the country's top two sources of
immigrants. That's up from 29,112 Chinese and 17,429 Indians in 1999.

EASIER TO GET RESIDENCY
Canada's appeal lies in its points-based immigration system, which generally
takes six to 12 months to award permanent residency. The government assigns
points to educational level, language skills, adaptability and experience --
factors in successful economic establishment. Applicants can fill out the
forms by themselves.

If a candidate meets the minimum number of points and has proper
documentation, he or she will likely obtain residency, said Jeffrey Abrams,
a Canadian immigration lawyer. Some applicants are inadmissible due to
medical, criminal and security reasons, or are delayed if too many
candidates come from a particular country.

Canada seeks to admit between 200,000 and 250,000 immigrants, or about 1
percent of its population, each year, but generally fails to meet that
target. (That's the equivalent of the United States pledging to take in 2.5
million to 3 million immigrants each year, instead of the fewer than 1
million who now enter.)

Applying for a U.S. green card is more complicated, taking three or more
years. Workers must rely on their employer to sponsor the costly process on
their behalf.

"Canada doesn't make indentured servants of employees," said Murali Krishna
Devarakonda of the Immigrants' Support Network, a worker advocacy group in
the United States. "It has a much simpler and fairer system."

At Maple International, a Quebec immigration law firm, applications for
permanent residency filed through its Mountain View office have jumped from
10 to 20 per month in 2000, to 50 to 55 per month. The firm, which
advertises in magazines such as Silicon India and India Currents as well as
the Chinese language Web site Sina.com, charges $1,800 in attorney fees for
processing the application.

In Silicon Valley, more than 95 percent of applicants are H-1B visa holders,

said Kasim Wu, an immigration consultant at Maple, whose offices feature
maps of Canada and Vancouver, British Columbia, as well as the pamphlet "A
Newcomer's Introduction to Canada."

MANY HAVE LOST JOBS
Almost a third of applicants have already lost their jobs, while others
apply as a pre-emptive measure, afraid their shaky companies could let them
go,

Wu said.

H-1B holders "are the most vulnerable, statuswise, to be affected by U.S.
immigration policy," Wu said.

These tech professionals are a coup for the Canadian workforce, said Paul
Swinwood, president of the Software Human Resource Council, an Ottawa trade
association and education company.

"Being able to recruit people we could not get three years ago, that's
excellent from the Canadian perspective," Swinwood said.

He credited immigrant entrepreneurs for creating employment and boosting the
economy with startups in Ottawa's "Silicon Valley North" and in Calgary,
Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto.

Meanwhile, some U.S. legislators, such as Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., are
trying to lower the cap on annual H-1B visas issued, down to 65,000, from
the 195,000 now available. Created by Congress in 1990, the H-1B program
took off middecade. Critics say the sinking economy has reduced the need for
foreigners.

Some U.S. tech workers also contend that employers prefer to hire lower-paid
foreigners instead of Americans.

COMPLICATED U.S. POLICY
The U.S. system of obtaining residency differs from Canada's for several
reasons, explained Barry Edmonston, director of the Population Research
Center at Portland State University in Oregon.

The INS spends more resources dealing with illegal immigration, said
Edmonston, former director of immigration at the National Academy of
Science, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

Congress has amended immigration legal code repeatedly over the years,
adding to its complexity, he said. The large backlog of cases also lengthens
the process.

Canada's other draws include its socialized health care system, cheaper cost
of living, quality educational system and good public transportation, say
those who made the switch. The country's proximity to the United States is
another attraction for workers who have become accustomed to life in North
America.

Programmer Yazdi Bulsara, 39, moved to Toronto in July 2001, joining his
brother who immigrated before him.

Although his U.S. employers in Dallas and New Jersey promised to assist him
with his green card, Bulsara said they never completed the process. Bulsara
was able to file for and obtain Canadian residency within nine months by
himself.

"It's close to the border, (my brother) was already there and it's the same
environment," said Bulsara, who grew up in a small industrial town near
Calcutta.

Bulsara has not yet found work. For now, his family lives off their savings,

stretched further because of the favorable exchange rate.

Canada's unemployment rate was 7.6 percent for July, compared with 5.9
percent in the United States and 6.3 percent in California. (Canada and the
United States measure unemployment differently, accounting for some of the
gap between the two rates.)

MORE FREEDOM TO MOVE AROUND
For some, Canadian permanent residency also offers the ability to move
around internationally freely. If they returned to their homeland and then
tried to apply for travel visas, they would run into problems, they say.
That freedom is a boon for entrepreneurs such as Emily Hou, who travels
between Canada and China as chief executive for A-Info Science & Technology
Inc., a wireless location services company.

Hou, a native of Beijing, moved from the Bay Area to Calgary last year,
where the government has helped nurtured her business, providing advice on
venture capital and legal matters, she said.

The Canadian address also puts North American customers and business
partners at ease, Hou said.

"It's easier for them to accept this idea, from a legal, accounting and
cultural perspective, that (they) are doing business with a North American
company, rather than doing business with China," Hou said.

After finishing accounting graduate school in Boston, Hou moved to the Bay
Area in 1995 and worked at several tech startups on an H-1B visa.

Hou never obtained a green card, which would have required her to stay with
any company that sponsored her throughout the yearslong process. She applied
for and received Canadian residency in about seven months.

"The U.S. is a good country that I love, that gave me a fair opportunity,
but its immigration policy is a burden to a lot of foreigners," Hou said.

Eappan Benjamin, a Fremont network administrator, lost his job at telecom
firm Marconi in February, which derailed his hopes for a green card. As a
backup, he applied for and received Canadian residency in 1997, around the
same time he landed a Bay Area job on an H-1B visa.

After the native of India sells his house, Benjamin, 39, plans to move with
his wife, 8-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son to Alberta, where an aunt
and uncle settled 25 years ago.

His wife, a teacher by training, has been unable to work in the United
States, because her H-4 visa did not permit her. As a permanent resident of
Canada, she will be able to teach, Benjamin said.

He would consider moving back to the United States someday for a good
opportunity, but only on one condition: "I need residency or citizenship
status. I do not want to keep hopping around."

E-mail Vanessa Hua at vahua@sfchronicle.com.

Immigration policy comparison
More foreign-born tech workers living in the United States are applying for
permanent residency in Canada, which they say is a simpler, cheaper, and
faster than obtaining a U.S. green card.
.

United States Canada

Sponsor Must be sponsored by No sponsor needed

employer or relative

Legal Hired by sponsoring Do-it-yourself
counsel employers forms online or applicant

can hire a lawyer

Average 3 years or more 6 to 12 months
processing
time
Application $800 on average $995
fees plus $3,000-$15,000 in attorney fees in attorney fees

plus up to $2,000 (legal counsel optional)

.
Source: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service; Canadian Consulate in
Los
Angeles; Jim Eiss, Buffalo, N.Y., immigration lawyer

Š2002 San Francisco Chronicle. Page G - 3

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