Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Supports H-1B Increase

Date: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 1:20 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

June 02, 2004 - No. 1024

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial below is very similar to the
Boston Globe editorial that appeared about the same time. I believe the
confluence of these articles is no coincidence. Recently Harris Miller
said that his new coalition "Compete Amerika" will engage in media
campaigns to promote an H-1B increase. These articles are very similar
because the reporters are probably just copying the coalition's press
releases. (Sorry about the Amerika spelling but I just couldn't
resist!)

These editorials are bad news for those of us that are trying to
convince newspapers to report our point of view. That's because once
the editorial boards take the position that H-1B needs to be increased
they tend to filter out articles that take opposing points of view.

This editorial contains so much misinformation I don't want to discuss
all of them, but I think this sentence tells it all:

Since then, the H-1B visa program has helped both American
employers and their well-educated immigrant employees.

Notice that they didn't say how H-1B affects American workers.
Apparently that's not important to this newspaper as long as employers
can realize bigger profits by using cheap labor. There is a thinly
veiled implication Americans aren't educated enough for these jobs;
which of course would justify using H-1Bs. The editors consider
immigrants and H-1Bs as the same thing even though H-1Bs are supposed
to be temporary nonimmigrants.

I strongly encourage people to write letters to the editor to dispute
these articles - especially if you live in the area where the paper is
published.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/may04/233395.asp

Editorial: Removing a cap on a visa

From the Journal Sentinel
Posted: May 31, 2004
In 1952, Congress established a new visa designed to give U.S.
companies and other institutions access to the best and brightest
foreign professionals. Since then, the H-1B visa program has helped
both American employers and their well-educated immigrant employees.
There's only one problem: a cap on the number of H-1B visas that the
U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services can issue.

That cap, currently 65,000 in any fiscal year, needs to be raised, and
quickly, because demand for the visas already has outstripped supply.
In fact, it did so in mid-February, less than five months into fiscal
2004, when the bureau said its H-1B visas had topped out at the
allowable maximum.

H-1B visas, hugely popular during the high-tech boom of the late 1990s,
have become controversial these days - in part because of the lag in
significant job growth during the current business expansion. Skeptics
assert that American companies prefer to hire H-1B immigrants because
they can pay them less than U.S. workers.

There have been some abuses in the past. But legally, U.S. companies
are supposed to testify on paper that American workers will not be hurt
by the hiring of an H-1B professional and that the foreign employee
will be compensated at the same level as a comparable American worker.

H-1B visas also help to stem a brain drain - of foreigners who earn
advanced degrees in the United States and, unable to find legal work
here, return home. This is particularly worrisome in the sciences.
American colleges and universities now award nearly half of all
master's and doctorate degrees in engineering and mathematics to
foreign students. If American jobs aren't jeopardized, it's in the
nation's interest to keep these students in the U.S. on three-year H-1B
visas, which are renewable one time, with the hope that they will
remain and seek citizenship. Many, perhaps most, of them do just that.

In April, legislation was introduced in the House to expand the ceiling
on H-1B visas by 20,000 for immigrants who have earned master's degrees
or doctorates. It ought to get a hearing and, barring some shortcoming
that is not apparent to us, pass easily.

The demand for these workers is fairly clear; they tend to fill jobs
for which American workers are in short supply. On this point, supply
and demand need to be brought into better balance.

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