DHS Unilaterally Issues 10,000 More H-1B Visas

Date: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 12:00 AM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

by Rob Sanchez
March 28, 2005 No. 1224

The Department of Homeland security recently issued 10,000 more visas
than authorized by Congress. Since Congress approved an additional
20,000 to be issued in 2005 in addition to the 65,000 already mandated,
this means that at least 95,000 new H-1B visas will handed out this
year to foreign job seekers.

The DHS has no authority to hand out more visas than Congress mandates,
but that didn't stop them from doing it. They thumbed their nose at
Congress and issued the visas anyway. Apparently the rule of law and
the Constitution is no longer a barrier when the DHS chooses to allow
more aliens into the United States to take our jobs. The reason they
gave for their abrogation of the will of Congress is that they just
felt like handing out more visas. In their mind it was just a matter of
bureaucratic convenience to allow more visas to be issued because they
received a lot of last minute requests for visas from employers who
wanted to hire cheap workers.

Bill Tucker pointed this important point out on today's Lou Dobbs:

And, by the way, Lou, this is not the first time that
CIS has blown past its cap and exceeded the cap for H1B
visas by 20,000 in 1999.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) told the director of Homeland
Security's Citizenship and Immigration Services that he is discouraged
that the will of Congress is being ignored.

DISCOURAGED??? That's really a lame response. Thank goodness Grassley
had the guts to say something because it appears that the rest of
Congress is content to sit this one out. Grassley and all of Congress
should be outraged, not merely discouraged.

If Congress has been reduced to merely filing mild complaints when the
Department of Homeland Security ignores their will then we are no
longer a nation governed by laws - we have been taken over by thugs!

Articles used for this newsletter

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0503/28/ldt.01.html
LOU DOBBS TONIGHT Aired March 28, 2005 - 18:00 ET

http://www.hendersondispatch.com/articles/2005/03/28/news/opinion/opin01.txt
Good enough for government work

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2038-2005Mar25.html
U.S. Exceeds Limits On High-Tech Visas

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0503/28/ldt.01.html

DOBBS: Tonight it is important to note that in this country we still do
not have the same number of jobs that we had five years ago. Part of
the reason is that we are exporting jobs and we are importing labor.

New outrage tonight officer the controversial H1B visas, visas given to
foreign nationals who come to work in this country. The Department of
Homeland Security has approved 75,000 new visas for foreign workers
this year. It turns out that's 10,000 more than was authorized by
Congress.

Bill Tucker reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It would seem that there
is no more an ardent supporter of jobs for foreigners than the United
States Citizenship and Immigration Service. Apparently, the bureau has
approved 10,000 more petitions for H1B visas than Congress authorized.

That's 75,000 visa applications approved versus the cap of 65,000. And
these are mowing the year jobs either. These are jobs for architects,
engineers, jobs in medicine, biotechnology and computer programming.

A letter from Senator Charles Grassley questioning the action was sent
to the Citizenship and Immigration Services, expressing disbelief,
saying, "It discourages me to hear that Congress' limit may have been
ignored." Grassley also asked for a timely response. Twenty-two days
later, he still has no response. When we contacted the bureau, it said
it's still formulating a response. But the agency's critics are much
quicker to respond.

RON HIRA, IEEE-USA VICE PRESIDENT: It's extremely hard to get reliable
numbers on how many H1Bs are here, which companies are using them in
which occupations, what H1B workers are being paid. And no one even
knows how many hundreds of thousand of H1B workers are here right now,
let alone the new folks coming in.

TUCKER: A spokesman for the Citizenship and Immigration Services calls
the issue complex and difficult.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TUCKER: But it comes down to this... two government agencies have
issued separate reports saying the H1B visa program needs better
controls to protect American workers. The reports are from the
Government Accountability Office and the Department of Labor, the most
recent of which is two years old, and still nothing has been done.

And, by the way, Lou, this is not the first time that CIS has blown
past its cap and exceeded the cap for H1B visas by 20,000 in 1999.

DOBBS: Well, this is a contest between a bureaucracy and the United
States Congress, which presumably has the appropriate authority here.
You know, as you were reporting, all I could hear ringing in my ears
was President Bush saying "Jobs that Americans don't want."

Architecture, medicine, biotechnology, engineering? There aren't many
Americans who wouldn't want those jobs.

TUCKER: Oh, no, there's not. And a lot of the problem with this program
is there is no transparency, Lou. A company that hires workers doesn't
have to disclose their H1B visas, doesn't have to tell you what kinds
of jobs that they have.

DOBBS: And as Vice President Cheney last week pointed out, referring to
illegal aliens in that case, but it appears that that applies as well
to some of these visa holders as well, we don't know who they are, we
don't know what they're doing, we don't know anything about them. And
somebody, somebody at Homeland Security and Immigration should, one
would think, be slightly embarrassed. One would hope.

Bill Tucker, thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.hendersondispatch.com/articles/2005/03/28/news/opinion/opin01.txt

Good enough for government work

A story from Washington this weekend gives us an alarming view of how
government often works.

The Homeland Security Department approved 10,000 more visa applications
for immigrants seeking high-tech and specialty jobs than Congress
permitted this year. Only 65,000 "H1-B" visas were supposed to be given
out - not including another 20,000 non-residents who were exempted from
H-1B status because they hold graduate degrees from American
universities.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote a letter to Eduardo Aguirre,
director of Citizenship and Immigration for Homeland Security. A
"discouraged" Grassley asked how the Congressional limit could have
been exceeded.

The agency's reply speaks volumes about how government snafus occur. It
blamed the over-issuance of visas on a last-minute surge of
applications. Homeland Security said Citizenship and Immigration
projects each year how many applications it can accept to stay within
limits, and doesn't actually know if it has hit the congressional cap
until it has finished approving them.

Pardon?

This much, from us, is speculation. But we gather that what the agency
means is that it ballparks how many applications it can expect to
receive in a year, and then determines from that what percentage it can
lawfully accept. So if it gets more applications than expected, then it
will eventually issue more visas than Congress intended to allow,
because nobody bothered to stop and count along the way to see if
Homeland Security was cuttin' it close.

Would that excuse work if we tried to use it next month in preparing
our taxes?

We think not.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2038-2005Mar25.html

U.S. Exceeds Limits On High-Tech Visas

The Department of Homeland Security approved 10,000 more applications
for visas for high-tech and specialty workers than Congress permitted
for this fiscal year.

The mistake was made with H-1B visas, available to foreigners with a
bachelor's degree or higher who want to fill U.S. jobs in architecture,
engineering, medicine, biotechnology and computer programming.

Only 65,000 H-1B visas are supposed to be given out this fiscal year,
although Congress let the department exempt from the limit 20,000
foreigners with graduate degrees from American universities.

"It discourages me to hear that Congress' limit may have been ignored,"
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a March 7 letter to Eduardo
Aguirre Jr., director of Homeland Security's Citizenship and
Immigration Services unit. He has asked for an explanation and how the
agency will prevent exceeding the limit again.

Agency spokesman Bill Strassberger said a last-minute surge in
applications was responsible.

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