Push for Green Cards and F-4 visas
Push for Green Cards and F-4 visas
Date: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 4:07 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
April 12, 2006 No. 1458
There are several reasons H-1Bs depress salaries in the U.S. Here are some
of the most important ones:
1) Supply and Demand
The law of "supply and demand" rules our capitalist economy. In Economics
101 we all should have learned that an increase in supply lowers prices.
The labor market works the same way: more available workers causes a
greater supply of labor which will cause wages to go down. Foreign workers
can contribute to the labor supply by illegal immigration, legal
immigration via green cards, or nonimmigrant visas such as H-1B/L-1.
Dr. Norman Matloff computed the average starting salaries for new Master's
graduates in Fall 2005, compared to Fall 2001 taking inflation into
account. As you can see they are going down. The year 2000 is the year that
H-1B cap was increased to 195,000 so the laws of supply and demand are
working exactly as they should.
field % change, 2001 to 2005
Computer Science -6.6
Computer Engineering -13.7
Electrical Engineering -9.4
2) Global Labor Arbitrage
The majority of H-1Bs come from countries where the standard of living is
much lower than in the U.S. They are willing to come to the U.S. and take
substantially lower salaries and worse working conditions than an American
because almost any job is better than what they could get in their home
country. As more H-1Bs come into the United States citizens are forced to
compete with them for jobs. Often H-1Bs don't receive benefits or pay
federal taxes and social security. This gives them an obvious advantage in
the labor market that allows them to further underbid U.S. workers.
3) Age Discrimination
H-1B makes it far easier for companies to discriminate based on age and
gender. Most H-1Bs are young males who are being used to replace techies
over the age of 40. If you want to read more about this aspect of H-1B the
best place to go is the "Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor
Shortage" by Matloff:
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.html
4) Indentured Servitude
H-1B visas are owned by the employer, not the foreign worker. By law, if an
H-1B loses their job, their visa goes out of status and they must return to
their home country. Employers have unusual leverage and power over the H-1B
worker because they cannot easily change jobs once they are here. Employers
can pay them less, work them harder, and refuse to give them salary
increases because they know the H-1B can't leave as easily as a U.S.
citizen in a similar position. The indentured contract can penalize H-1B
workers who leave their company because they can be liable for liquidated
damages. Liquidated damages are whatever the company says the project will
lose when this employee leaves. The threat of being sued for liquidated
damages further indentures the H-1B to his or her employer.
There seems to be a growing consensus among some engineering and technical
associations that the way to solve the salary depression problem is to
eliminate the H-1B visa while at the same time increasing the number of
Green Cards. Their theory is that by eliminating the indentured servitude
aspect of the H-1B visa the foreign workers who enter the U.S. will be able
to compete on an equal footing, and therefore salaries for all technical
workers will increase.
Their logic seems compelling, but to accept their argument you must ignore
the most important reasons that H-1B is a problem - items 1, 2, and 3. The
indentured servitude aspect of H-1B has been overplayed as a major factor
in salary depression and the loss of job opportunities for unemployed
techies. H-1B regulations have been loosened to allow H-1Bs to transfer to
other employers without having to go back to their home country and
applying for a new visa. The carrot employers have to dangle in front of
the H-1Bs is the fact that during the Green Card process, the H-1B must
stay with one employer. H-1Bs will have to begin the Green Card process
over if they transfer to another employer. That is a very tempting carrot
because many H-1Bs want a Green Card so that they can have permanent
residency and a path to citizenship.
Demographically most foreign workers are young males. Issuing them green
cards won't solve the age discrimination problem for U.S. workers - it will
make it worse by increasing the available pool of young workers. High-tech
companies have a tendency to want young males so gender discrimination can
also increase.
Advocates of replacing H-1Bs with Green Cards deny or ignore the fact that
our labor market responds to the laws of supply and demand just like all
other commodities. They are making an even worse mistake by inviting
thousands of new permanent residents into the U.S. to take our jobs - at
least with H-1Bs we can get rid of them while Green Carders are here
forever.
Any damage done to the U.S. labor market by these new permanent residents
is - PERMANENT!
To learn more about the H-1B vs. Green Card debate, go to this link:
http://www.zazona.com/ShameH1B/H1BvsGreenCard.htm
F-4 visas seem to be in vogue but they could be potentially worse than H-1B
visas. The Specter bill in the Senate proposes an F-4 visa that will allow
a foreign student to graduate from a U.S. university - and he/she can stay
in the U.S. for up to two years to look for a job. This is antithetical to
the premise that there is a shortage of workers with advanced degrees. F-4
visas will cut out young U.S. college students who are competing for the
same jobs and ironically they will exacerbate the age discrimination
problem because vast new numbers of young foreign students will take jobs
from older Americans.
To put it bluntly - TRADING H-1B VISAS FOR GREEN CARDS AND F-4 VISAS IS
LIKE MAKING A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL!
So who would advocate such a deal you may ask? The answer isn't as obvious
as you may think.
For starters, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
(IEEE-USA).
Here is their deal with the devil:
IEEE-USA believes the permanent immigration [green cards]
of skilled scientists and engineers is better for the
country's capacity to innovate and meet high-tech
workforce demands than another expansion of the badly broken
temporary H-1B guest worker program.
The rationale given for this deal by IEEE-USA president Wyndrum is to solve
the indentured servitude aspect of H-1B, which isn't the main problem:
"Immigration-based admissions level the playing field for all
workers, and ensure that America benefits from recruiting the
world's best and brightest as future Americans, rather than
training future competitors," said Wyndrum
I will have more on IEEE and F-4 visas in following newsletters.
So who else would make this deal with the devil? None other than a board
member of the Programmer's Guild, Roy Lawson. He wrote an article that
appeared on two websites that were very receptive for his advocacy of Green
Cards and F-4 visas - the Immigration Lawyers Website and immigration
attorney Greg Siskind. Keep in mind that the Programmer's Guild hasn't
officially endorsed Lawson's agenda, but they haven't refuted it either.
There are many things wrong with the Lawson article. Here are a few of
them. Commentary follows each quote.
LAWSON: The largest share of H-1B visas go to "body shops" or companies
that outsource their services.
COMMENT: Actually that's not true. The large majority of H-1B visas are
issued to U.S. employers, not bodyshops. Lawson, like so many others want
to stigmatize bodyshops while giving U.S. employers such as Microsoft and
Intel a free ride. Universities hire far more H-1Bs than all of the
bodyshops combined and yet they are rarely mentioned as one of the
culprits. See for yourself by browsing the LCA database at:
http://www.zazona.com/LCA-Data/.
LAWSON: The only true fix to the H-1B is a total ban of the visa.
COMMENT: Lawson sounds good up to this point, but his logic leads to the
same conclusion as IEEE that the only way to fix the problem is to get rid
of the indentured servitude problem. His fix is worse than the problem.
LAWSON: The number of H-1B visas are limited, so it was important that they
go where our society needs them most - like to doctors and truly skilled
innovators who would make our country more competitive as opposed to using
the visa as a tool to export American jobs.
COMMENT: One of the reasons programmers and engineers cannot get other
professions to cooperate against H-1B is because these techie geeks are
only concerned with themselves. They are more than willing to push H-1B on
other professions and they accept all shortage propaganda as long as it
isn't for techies. Until these self-absorbed techies can look at the big
picture they will never solve the problem.
LAWSON: I acknowledge that there will always be professionals immigration
to the United States and don't advocate closing the door to them; we should
be smart about who we let in and where they go.
COMMENT: I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately what he proposes isn't smart,
it's a sellout!
LAWSON: The H-1B visa should be replaced with a path to a green card for
graduates with advanced degrees from accredited American universities.
COMMENT: This is his deal with the devil. While he doesn't specifically
mention the F-4 visa, his proposal sounds very similar. If Lawson were
limiting Green Cards only to graduates it would be bad enough, but there is
more:
LAWSON: Occupations experiencing high unemployment as shown by the BLS OES
survey should be closed to immigrants until things improve.
COMMENT: Lawson proposes to regulate the number of Green Cards by using the
unemployment rate as an index. The unemployment rate is a very inaccurate
indicator for technical workers but the worse flaw that he ignores is that
someone will have to set the trip point. Who will that be and what will be
their agenda? Surely we wouldn't want Elaine Chao at the DOL to set a
limit. This raises a very basic question - what is an acceptable rate of
unemployment, and who will be granted the power to regulate it? Lawson
seems to think that a 3% unemployment rate for programmer's is cool. The
Programmer's Guild website states that they are dedicated to improving the
careers of programmers so shouldn't a zero unemployment rate be the goal?
***** Conclusions *****
Proponents of trading H-1Bs for Green Cards and F-4 visas ignore the most
obvious problem of all - other visas. Not a single one of them mentions L-1
visas which are used much like an H-1B but are unlimited, or the "O" visa
which is being used more and more often for all types of jobs, or the H-2B
visa which is supposed to be used for low paying grunt jobs but is often
used for higher paying blue-collar jobs. Eliminating H-1B visas won't solve
any of the problems with these other visas, although you may see more
foreign workers that prefer Green Cards over nonimmigrant visas.
Read these for more on "O" visas:
http://www.vdare.com/sanchez/060404_dorismar.htm
"O" No! Dorismar Gets An "O" Visa!
http://www.symphony.org/govaff/what/pdf/visatestimony.pdf
Testimony in Support of O Visas for artists
Articles Used for Newsletter
http://www.reed-electronics.com/electronicnews/article/CA6317575.html&
IEEE-USA Questions H-1B Program
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/article.php/3597521
Who Would the H-1B Visa Cap Increase Help?
http://www.ilw.com/articles/2006,0322-Lawson.shtmor
http://www.visalaw.com/06mar2/index.html
Abolish The H-1B; Green Cards For US Graduates Instead
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.reed-electronics.com/electronicnews/article/CA6317575.html&
IEEE-USA Questions H-1B Program
Online staff -- 3/21/2006
Electronic News
Despite numerous government reports pointing out major flaws and weaknesses
of the H-1B visa program, Congress is considering increasing the annual
H-1B visa cap by at least 50,000 without strengthening safeguards to
protect foreign and domestic technology workers, according to a release
issued from IEEE-USA.
The reports reveal "significant weaknesses in the H-1B program that must be
corrected to ensure that U.S. workers are not adversely affected and H-1B
workers are not exploited," said IEEE-USA President Ralph W. Wyndrum Jr. in
a March 15 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. "As the administration
concluded last year, the program has major flaws that leave it vulnerable
to fraud and abuse."
Wyndrum also questioned why Congress is considering increasing the H-1B
visa cap from 65,000 to 115,000, and including an automatic escalator
mechanism for future years, when current legislative provisions would
expand permanent admissions of skilled foreign professionals. Among the
proposals is a new student F-4 visa that leads to a green card for foreign
nationals pursuing advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and
mathematics at U.S. colleges.
Another proposal would expand employment-based immigrant admissions visas
from 140,000 to 290,000, exclude immediate family members from the limit,
recapture unused immigrant visas from prior years and exempt
advanced-degree professionals from the cap.
IEEE-USA believes the permanent immigration of skilled scientists and
engineers is better for the country's capacity to innovate and meet
high-tech workforce demands than another expansion of the badly broken
temporary H-1B guest worker program.
"Immigration-based admissions level the playing field for all workers, and
ensure that America benefits from recruiting the world's best and brightest
as future Americans, rather than training future competitors," said
Wyndrum, in a statement this week. "We hope Congress will see that
permanent immigration is the better solution to strengthening the U.S.
high-tech workforce."
IEEE-USA supports the H-1B reform legislation that Rep. Bill Pascrell
(D-N.J.) introduced last November. None of his recommendations for
correcting the flaws in the H-1B program are included in the latest
proposal before Congress, according to IEEE-USA. The bill proposed by Rep.
Pascrell would require all employers, not just so-called "H-1B-dependent
companies," to attest to good-faith efforts to actively recruit U.S.
workers for jobs employers propose to fill with H-1B workers. The proposal
also prohibits the outplacement (i.e., outsourcing, leasing or contracting)
of H-1B workers by H-1B employers to other companies.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/article.php/3597521
Who Would the H-1B Visa Cap Increase Help?
April 7, 2006
By Sharon Gaudin
Business leaders trying to push through an increase to the H-1B visa cap
say the move would spur innovation, which, in turn, would create job
growth.
But U.S. IT professionals say nearly doubling the number of foreign workers
allowed to come here would flood the market with cheaper labor and kick
start another wave of high-tech unemployment.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has endorsed a move to up the number of H-1B
visas given out every year from 65,000 to 115,000. The bill also says that
in coming years if industry meets the cap limit, it automatically can be
expanded by an additional 20 percent.
The bill is expected to receive official Senate approval as it comes as
part of the giant immigration bill that Republicans and Democrats have been
wrestling over. Slipped in amid heated negotiations over border security,
immigration and citizenship, is the call to up the number of foreign
workers -- largely scientists, programmers and engineers -- employed by
American companies and universities.
On Thursday, both sides reported being close to sealing a deal on the
immigration bill, but by Friday morning bickering had stalled efforts. Now
reports say it may not be signed until Congress returns from a two- week
spring recess. While the giant bill staggers ahead, the move to expand the
H-1B visa program just might hit a major snag in the House of
Representatives.
Last week, a House panel that oversees immigration issues did not respond
nearly as favorably to the move. And industry watchers say there the push
may stall, at least temporarily.
And that would be a loss to U.S. industry which needs to fill positions
that stand empty and could better innovate if they were allowed to bring in
highly skilled workers from other countries, according to Rebecca Peters,
counsel and manager of government relations for the Washington, D.C.-based
American Council on International Personnel, a non-profit trade
organization that lobbies for immigration laws and trade policies on behalf
of American employers.
''This will not hurt U.S. tech workers,'' says Peters. ''These [visa
workers] are innovators. They're coming in and making America more
competitive globally.'' Peters also says demand for high-tech professionals
is high and H-1B workers would take jobs that otherwise wouldn't be filled
at all.
John Miano, a consultant for Colosseum Builders Inc., a high-tech and legal
consultancy based in Summit, N.J., says that's not the case.
Miano authored a report for the Center for Immigration Studies comparing
wages paid to H-1B computer programmers to U.S. wages. He contends that
U.S. companies want to up the cap, not to bring in innovative and highly
trained workers, but to harvest cheap labor from foreign shores, putting
American workers at a disadvantage and forcing many into unemployment
lines.
''It's creating direct competition for American workers,'' says Miano, who
testified before a House subcommittee on this issue last week. ''The cap is
the only protection for U.S. workers that exists in the system. The cap is
the only thing that stands between workers and total chaos.''
Innovation or Competition?
Six to eight years ago, during the golden age of the IT industry, there
were more high-tech jobs than skilled American workers could possibly fill.
Using the H-1B visa system, companies were bringing in hundreds of
thousands of foreign workers, and were just beginning to ship a few jobs
offshore -- a trickle of employment. But few squawked. After all, there
were more than enough jobs to go around.
But that all changed when the dot-com bubble burst, starting a major slide
in the tech industry near the turn of the century. Suddenly once highly
paid engineers, system administrators and project leaders found themselves
receiving pink slips instead of big budgets. IT departments shrank while
the number of resumes coming in for a single tech job grew.
At that point, an increasing number of people raised their voices against
the H-1B visa program, which, they said, were taking needed jobs away from
U.S. citizens struggling to find work. The cap was lowered but despite
that, there were 4 million H-1B and L-1 visas issued in the last six years
alone, according to John Bauman, president and co-founder of The
Organization for the Rights of American Workers (TORAW).
L-1s are non-immigrant visas available to foreign employees of
international companies that have offices in the U.S. The L-1 visas allow
them to relocate to U.S. offices.
Now that the economy has improved and high-tech hiring has picked up again,
employers say it's time to allow companies to hire more foreign workers
through H-1B visas.
Peters says it's not just a matter of filling vacant spots. She says it's a
matter of helping the U.S. economy by using H-1B visa workers to create new
jobs. She explains that if Intel, for instance, hires innovative foreign
workers who create a new technology that takes off, new jobs will be
created to support that new product.
Bauman, himself a project manager who has worked only 10 months in the last
three and a half years, says it's not that simple of an equation. There are
U.S. high-tech professionals who could use some of those jobs today.
''We've lost 25 percent of our IT jobs just here in Connecticut,'' says
Bauman, who was in Washington, D.C. last week meeting with Congressional
representatives. ''Nationally, I think they're reporting that 4 percent of
high-tech workers are unemployed... The shame of it is that many of those
who have lost their jobs just don't show up on the stats anymore. The
government can say, 'Look how great we're doing' but these people are
driving trucks, working as handymen. They're not working in their field
anymore. They're just trying to make ends meet and pay the bills. But
suddenly they don't show up [on unemployment lists] anymore.''
Ralph Wyndrum, president of the IEEE-USA, a non-profit organization that
describes itself as promoting the advancement of technology, says many
out-of-work IT professionals have themselves to blame -- not foreign
workers.
''To American computer engineers, we say, 'You can compete','' says
Wyndrum. ''The only ones who might be hurt are the computer engineers who
haven't done anything about their careers for 10 or 20 years... They were
once well-trained but they're not up-to-date. I'd dare say the probability
of the engineers who were laid off whose training is obsolete is a
one-to-one equivalence.
''We've gotten a little lazy,'' he adds. ''The technology is changing so
rapidly you can't expect that the degree you got in 1985 can match up now.
Just think how many things have been created... The free market is in
control.''
But Wyndrum says the IEEE doesn't support the H-1B visa program -- cap or
no cap.
''We support legislation that says let people in. Welcome people as America
always has,'' he adds. ''Let them be citizens... We have always succeeded
as a country because we have attracted the brightest and the best. It's
kept us at the top of the totem pole. To change that now and to say,
'China, India, we don't want you' isn't going to work. We can't overcome
natural forces. You have to learn to how thrive within these forces.''
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.ilw.com/articles/2006,0322-Lawson.shtm
http://www.visalaw.com/06mar2/index.html
Abolish The H-1B; Green Cards For US Graduates Instead
by Roy Lawson
The H-1B visa is a 3-6 year temporary worker program originally designed to
allow corporations to sponsor workers to fill an alleged worker shortage -
this has since been disproved in the IT market which is the largest
destination for IT workers on the H-1B visa. Until 2003 the H-1B cap was
set to 195,000 and has since been lowered to 85,000 with the majority still
flooding the IT job market.
After years of addressing the problem of H-1B visas, it is time to push for
an entirely different approach. It has become clear that the practice of
giving power over a person's immigration status to a corporation is
unethical and should be banned. The H-1B visa harms American workers and
foreign workers alike; the law was drafted to subsidize corporations with
cheap skilled labor and not to protect American jobs or foreign workers
from abuse.
The largest share of H-1B visas go to "body shops" or companies that
outsource their services. Wipro, Infosys, and Tata (large Indian
outsourcing companies) use this visa to enable offshore outsourcing of
American jobs. Instead of meeting a shortage of IT workers falsely claimed
by the IT lobby in the late 1990s, it is now a supply of cheap labor. The
IT lobby predicted over 2 million jobs would be created from 2000-2010. As
of today, we have lost 170,000 IT jobs since 2000. So much for job
creation.
The H-1B doesn't always go to the best and brightest; the majority of H-1B
IT workers are in their early to mid twenties and work for on average
$13,000 less than their American counterparts, according to a report issued
by the CIS. Don't be fooled, this visa is not filling high-skilled jobs
that Americans are unwilling to do or not trained to do.
Every time we work to close one loophole in the H-1B, unscrupulous
companies are hard at work exploiting another vulnerability. The number of
H-1B visas are limited, so it was important that they go where our society
needs them most - like to doctors and truly skilled innovators who would
make our country more competitive as opposed to using the visa as a tool to
export American jobs.
The only true fix to the H-1B is a total ban of the visa. I acknowledge
that there will always be professionals immigration to the United States
and don't advocate closing the door to them; we should be smart about who
we let in and where they go. I would offer them something better than a
temporary visa: a green card.
The H-1B visa should be replaced with a path to a green card for graduates
with advanced degrees from accredited American universities. A green card
creates a worker who is truly mobile and a real participant of the free
market. Additionally they gain an interest in the future of our nation and
will help create jobs as opposed to exporting them. Any such system should
offer protections to the American workforce and show preference to the most
experienced and educated immigrants.
Such a visa would have the following attributes:
Best and Brightest
Advanced graduates of accredited American universities should be eligible.
GPA should matter.
Mobility
Workers on the green card have the ability to participate in the free
market and change jobs at will. If they are being mistreated they can leave
without jeopardizing their immigration status. Their ability to negotiate
better wages is good for American workers who should not be forced to
compete with exploited and lower paid workers in our own workforce.
Labor Protections
When American workers experience difficult times and a sour job market, it
is not fair to force them to compete with additional foreign workers.
Occupations experiencing high unemployment as shown by the BLS OES survey
should be closed to immigrants until things improve. A good measure is the
historical average unemployment across all occupations - usually below
2.5%. over the past six years. Any occupation with an unemployment rate
above 3% should be closed to immigration. Occupations with the lowest
unemployment should be open to the largest share of immigrants.
Education Protections
American students should not be displaced to foreign students. If
universities want to accommodate more immigrants they should build larger
facilities and hire more professors. The quality and access to a higher
education for American students should never be jeopardized.
Permanent
We should not risk losing the investment in education and training to
foreign companies. We should want to hoard as many smart people as
possible. This is part of being competitive in the global economy. Reward
these immigrants with a green card for their hard work and encourage them
to become American citizens. Better that they are on our team than India or
China's.
Such a plan would only work with a total ban of the H-1B visa. Employment
sponsored visas have become tools to exploit skilled labor and replace
American workers. We need the best and brightest skilled workers, not the
most exploitable and cheapest workers.
About The Author
Roy Lawson is on the Board of Directors of the Programmers Guild and a long
time activist in matters relating to Information Technology trends. He
writes a blog (http://techpol.blogspot.com) to discuss political issues
relevant to American technology workers. Issues include non-immigrant
visas, offshore outsourcing, overtime pay, discrimination, professional
licensing, patent laws, and whatever interests the reader. His views are
his own.
www.ZaZona.com
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