MS-Senate Ver 1.0

Date: Friday, October 21, 2005 4:47 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

by Rob Sanchez
October 21, 2005 No. 1352

Today I talked to Roy Beck of NumbersUSA to get some inside information about why the Senate Judiciary approved more H-1B and green card visas. He said the word is out in Washington DC that this was the result of intense lobbying by Microsoft. Last week lobbyists from Microsoft went to every Congressional office to lobby for more visas. Some people on Capitol Hill are actually referring to the Senate proposal as the "Bill Gates" bill.

The following Senators voted for the 60,000 H-1B increase. I don't know yet who voted against it in favor of a reduced 30,000 increase.

Specter (R-PA)
Brownback (R-KS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Leahy (D-VT)

Keep in mind that all parts of this bill could be changed as it works its way through the Senate. The H-1B numbers could even be increased and the fees changed. Don't bet on anything improving unless the American public wakes up and starts to protest the Senate plunderers.

The H-1B increase is not the worst thing that was approved yesterday. Perhaps the worst part of the bill allows the family of H-1B visa holders to be exempted from the visa limits, which means the spouse and all their children can get automatic work visas. If this family exemption is allowed, you can count on H-1B families to get very large, and you can also bet that they will bring lots of "children" that are old enough to work.

The CQ Today report below is the first detailed report I have seen on yesterday's shenanigans by our Senate. There are still many questions to be answered but this gives us a glimpse.

Judiciary members increased the number of H-1B visas so that the government could make some quick cash. In their rush to raise millions of dollars to pay off a small fraction of the federal deficit they traded American jobs for visas in much the same fashion as a Las Vegas casino trades cash for chips. The CQ report illustrates just how callous our elected officials are.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein voiced concern that issuing thousands of new H-1B visas would threaten many high-tech jobs in California, but that didn't stop her from voting in favor of a 30,000 increase.
Originally the Senate proposal called for a 60,000 H-1B increase per year for 5 years. Feinstein made a compromise that lowered it to 30,000 visas, probably for 10 years. Don't be surprised if Feinstein starts claiming that she reduced the numbers of H-1Bs by 30,000. Feinstein didn't do American workers much of a favor because she also lowered the proposed $1,500 fee for L-1 visas to $750. Thanks to Feinstein, H-1B and L-1 visas will be about the same cost - $500 compared to $750.

Arlen Specter's proposal to sell over a hundred thousand green cards for permanent worker visas remained untouched. Sen. Kennedy was so happy with Specter's proposal that he urged the committee to approve it.

Let's do some arithmatec to determine how much the money from selling these visas will affect the federal budget, assuming that all of the money from selling visas goes towards the federal deficit instead of paying the administration costs to rubber-stamp the visas. I used the Whitehouse budget figures which can be viewed at the following website:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/tables.html

Note: I didn't include the administrative costs that the government incurs when they issue visas because I don't have that number for H-1B visas. The costs of running a visa system aren't trivial either - Lauren Mack, a spokesperson for BCIS said that "nationwide, the agency loses nearly $1 million a day due to the rising cost of processing applications."

Federal Budget $2,693,000,000,000

Visa Sales $113,000,000

Federal Deficit $2,692,887,000,000

As you can see, under best case scenarios this garage sale of visas doesn't help to solve the U.S. budget problems. If the costs of putting tens of thousands of American workers was included in the figures the numbers would look far worse.

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

CQ TODAY - BUDGET: IMMIGRATION

Oct 20, 2005 - 2:52 p.m.

Senate Judiciary Imposes Visa Fees, Exceeds Target for Budget Savings

By Michael Sandler, CQ Staff

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday debated two approaches to meeting its required budgetary savings target through visa fees, then agreed to a compromise that incorporates parts of both proposals.

The debate quickly turned into a horse-trading session as Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., led the way in meshing the original proposal by Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., with a substitute offered by Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

The final version would:
o Raise the minimum fee for non-immigrant L-1 visas by $750, to a total of $1,440. Such visas allow businesses to temporarily transfer senior executives, managers and certain other specialized employees to the United States. The provision would generate an estimated $68 million a year over five years.

o Recapture hundreds of thousands of unused H-1B visas from previous years and reissue up to 30,000 a year with an added $500 fee. Those visas are reserved for highly skilled workers, often in engineering, computer technology and similar fields. The provision would generate an estimated $15 million a year over five years.

o Recapture and reissue unused immigrant work visas, or green cards, and increase the fee by $500. The provision would generate an estimated $30 million a year over five years.

Early staff assessments show the compromise would provide up to $113 million in fiscal 2006 and $565 million over five years. That would comfortably exceed the committee's $300 million five-year savings target set by the fiscal 2006 budget resolution (H Con Res 95).
Feinstein's compromise amendment was adopted by a vote of 10-5. The draft bill was then approved, 14-2. Democrats Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin voted against it.

An amendment offered by Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, that would have raised all immigration fees by 5 percent and generated $375 million over the five-year period was defeated, 6-11.
Senators directed the staff to polish the details of the new draft for submission to the Senate Budget Committee, which will include the measure in a broad reconciliation bill slated for markup next week.

Specter's original proposal would have reclaimed all unused H-1B visas and reissued them with a new fee, while Sessions would have tracked a bill (HR 3648) approved by the House Judiciary Committee on Sept. 29 that would have increased fees for L-1 visas by $1,500.

Specter's plan would have allowed the federal government to go back to October 1991 to recapture hundreds of thousands of unused H-1B visas, then reissue up to 60,000 of those visas a year with an additional $500 fee per visa. That would have generated $30 million a year.

Another $30 million a year would have been raised by reclaiming and reissuing unused green cards for professional workers going back to 2001, with an additional $500 fee per visa.
Feinstein's compromise cut in half, to 30,000, the number of H-1B visas to be reissued each year. That would generate $15 million annually. The green card portion of Specter's plan remained untouched in the final draft, a Specter aide said.

Feinstein also cut the proposed fee increase for L-1 visas to $750, which would generate an estimated $68 million a year, according to staff estimates. Sessions' bid to raise fees on the L-1 visas by $1,500 failed, 6-11. Feinstein supported the bigger increase.
Feinstein said she had a problem with issuing thousands of new H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, many of them in the computer technology sector. She said that threatens American jobs, especially in tech-heavy California.

"I think we do our own people a disservice," Feinstein said. "There's been no hearing on this. No investigation. This is just a very controversial thing."

Sessions agreed. "It's not budget reconciliation. It's a policy change," he said. "As Sen. Feinstein said, what evidence is there that there is a crisis?"

Specter said that in many cases, the nation needs these workers. John Cornyn, R-Texas, supported him, saying that the H-1B visas available now are depleted in the first two months of the year.
"I would also say if we were training enough engineers, we wouldn't need this," Cornyn said.

Business organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Information Technology Industry Council oppose the increased L-1 visa fee. The groups said it could discourage investment in the United States and complained that the money raised would not go toward speeding issuance of the visas. Employers currently can obtain accelerated processing of the visas by paying an additional $1,000 per worker.

Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., suggested the committee approve Specter's proposal and let the conferees work out a compromise later on. But Feinstein decided to act immediately, offering her amendment on the fly and winning its adoption.

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