Paring A Foreign Guest List

Date: Sunday, September 21, 2003 1:57 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

William T. Archey, president and chief executive of the American
Electronics Association, is using the time tested xenophobe argument to
complain about the resisitance to raising the yearly limit on H-1B when
he said, "This is a very anti-immigration environment in Washington."
What he forgot to mention is that fact that H-1B and L-1 visas are
called NONIMMIGRANT visas for a reason - they aren't immigrants. This
isn't an immigration issue, it's a jobs for U.S. citizens issue.

Now we are seeing the falsehoods from the Senate Judiciary Hearing
spreading through the press so expect them to be repeated by most major
news agencies:

At a Senate hearing on the issue Tuesday, several organizations
worked to dispel criticisms of the program, including the belief
that it allows U.S. companies to hire employees at below-market
wages. The median annual salary of an H-1B worker in the computer
field in 2002 was $60,000, compared with $58,500 for all computer
systems analysts in the nation, according to Department of

Homeland

Security statistics.

If you recall, Harris Miller recently said that he wouldn't lobby this
year for an increase in H-1B. If that's the case, what's the heck is he
doing now?

Harris N. Miller, president of the Information Technology
Association of America, a group that supported expanding the
program, said the best outcome would be a delay of any
legislative action on the issue until the spring.

While it's wonderful that the IEEE was the only organization allowed to
speak at the Senate Hearing that wanted the limit to drop to 65,000,
they are not necessarily on the side of the professionals they claim to
represent. Keep in mind that the IEEE supports H-1B and doesn't want
the limit to drop below 65,000 until the U.S. allows engineers to
immigrate to the U.S. with instant green cards. The instant green card
system that IEEE endorses will allow foreign technical workers to come
to the US in unlimited numbers and to stay here permanently.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.-USA,
which supported dropping the cap to 65,000, suggested that
companies should prove they attempted, but were unable, to hire
Americans before they are allowed to hire H-1B visa workers.

Here is another piece of bad news - the $1,000 price tag for an H-1B
visa is going down to $130. Since training programs and enforcement are
financed by that money, who is going to pick up the tab?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26612-2003Sep17

washingtonpost.com

Paring A Foreign Guest List

By Ellen McCarthy

Thursday, September 18, 2003; Page E01

Three years ago, technology companies lobbied hard to expand a program
that allows skilled immigrants to enter the country with a temporary
work permit called an H-1B visa.

But now, with the number of H-1B visas allowed by the federal
government slated to decline dramatically, the tech industry -- the
program's largest beneficiary -- is largely quiet on the issue, if not
entirely comfortable with the change.

The cap on H-1B visas, expanded by Congress to 195,000 annually
effective in 2001, will fall to 65,000 a year Oct. 1 under a sunset
provision. Associations of technology companies, facing political
headwinds on immigration and the economy, have grudgingly accepted the
cut. Even though the number of H-1B workers has plummeted, some
companies still worry that reducing the cap now will hinder their
ability to hire enough skilled workers when the economy recovers.

"We are supportive of the H-1B visa program. We think it allows tech
companies to hire uniquely skilled workers," said Thom Stohler, vice
president of workforce policy at AEA, an organization formerly called
the American Electronics Association. "But the reality is the cap is
going back to 65,000 and tech companies know this is going to be the
case."

Stohler said the cut will not be a problem for information technology
companies now, because hiring in the sector has slowed significantly in
the past several years. In fact, the number of employees brought into
the United States through the H-1B program never came close to reaching
the 195,000 annual capacity during the past three years.

In 1999 and 2000, though, the program hit its 115,000-person cap and
left plenty of people on the waiting list, prompting tech companies to
lobby for an expansion. In 2001, when the ceiling was raised, 163,200
H-1B visas were approved. After that, the numbers fell quickly. Just
79,100 workers immigrated under the program in 2002; 56,000 visas were
approved in the first six months of this year, according to data from
the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Stohler predicted 80,000 applications next year, potentially leaving
some companies unable to hire the employees they want. So why not use a
little of the lobbying muscle tech organizations exerted so forcefully
three years ago?

"This is a very anti-immigration environment in Washington," said
William T. Archey, president and chief executive of the AEA. "We'll
accept the going back to 65,000 and let's see what's going on with the
economy in the foreseeable future. And if in fact there is a lot of
growth and much greater demand, let's revisit this with the Congress."

Lately the percentage of first-time H-1B visa recipients going to work
in the tech industry has fallen dramatically. In 2001, 65 percent of
all H-1B visas were used by workers going to high-tech companies, but
tech's share dropped to 34 percent in 2002, according to a recent study
by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Immigration Security.

Group 1 Software Inc. of Lanham has a handful of employees who were
hired as H-1B recipients, but the firm's executives are not concerned
about the program's reduction, said spokesman David Peikin.

"Right now we are finding an adequate pool of talented candidates in
today's economic environment, however this was a bigger issue during
the economic boom," Peikin said. "I can't say we're staying up at night
worrying about it."

At a Senate hearing on the issue Tuesday, several organizations worked
to dispel criticisms of the program, including the belief that it
allows U.S. companies to hire employees at below-market wages. The
median annual salary of an H-1B worker in the computer field in 2002
was $60,000, compared with $58,500 for all computer systems analysts in
the nation, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics.

Harris N. Miller, president of the Information Technology Association
of America, a group that supported expanding the program, said the best
outcome would be a delay of any legislative action on the issue until
the spring.

"We don't think this is a good time for members [of Congress] to be
voting on immigration matters. We hope the economy will be a lot
stronger in the spring," said Miller. "There's no crisis, no driving
thing to force Congress to vote on this. It's much easier to have a
rational, fact-based conversation when the economy is stronger and
unemployment is going down."

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) emphasized the importance of protecting
Americans from immigration policies that could put them out of a job,
and said that reverting to the lower cap gives lawmakers "the
opportunity to re-evaluate our priorities and our policies for
professional worker visas."

Groups representing American tech workers have lobbied to reduce the
cap and want further protection for domestic workers. The Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.-USA, which supported dropping
the cap to 65,000, suggested that companies should prove they
attempted, but were unable, to hire Americans before they are allowed
to hire H-1B visa workers. The organization also recommended that the
companies continue to pay a $1,000 application fee per H1-B worker that
will go to a pool to train U.S. workers. At the end of the month, if no
action is taken by Congress, companies will pay only a $130
administrative fee.

"Primarily we think its important for the cap to drop back to its
historical level of 65,000 because we don't feel we need to be
importing great numbers of foreign labor when we have tremendous
amounts of unemployed high-tech workers here in our own companies,"
said Chris McManus, spokesman for IEEE-USA. "It has made it harder for
our own people to find jobs, and that certainly wasn't the intent of
Congress when they raised the cap to 115,000, then to 195,000."

Ellen McCarthy's e-mail address is mccarthye@washpost.com.

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