Congress takes on H-1B visas

Date: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 4:59 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

This article was published in April but it's still worthwhile to read.
There are two glaring factual errors that should be pointed out:

H-1B visas, designed to let American companies hire workers
who have unique skills that cannot be found among American
job seekers.

Fact: Companies don't have to hire H-1Bs with special skills and don't
have to prove whether American job seekers are trying to get the job.

Though the H-1B visa was designed to be temporary and
petitioners must overcome the assumption they will try
to immigrate, many foreigners see it as the first step
to a green card. The visas, issued for three years, may
be extended once for a total of six years.

Fact: After 6 years an H-1B visa holder can get a "7th Year Extension"
every year until he/she gets a Green Card. There is no time limit on
the extensions but they have to request the extension on a yearly
basis.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0304060286apr06,0,7781243.story?coll=chi-business-hed

Across the nation

Congress takes on H-1B visas

By T. Shawn Taylor
Tribune staff reporter

April 6, 2003

In 2001, the dot-com crash sent software entrepreneur Pete Bennett into
the bleak Silicon Valley labor market along with hordes of other
displaced tech professionals.

Among workers competing with Bennett were foreigners allowed into the
U.S. under H-1B visas, designed to let American companies hire workers
who have unique skills that cannot be found among American job seekers.

Bennett, who ended up taking a job selling mortgage loans, thinks the
H-1B program did him in.

"Every place I sent my resume had an H-1B bidding for the same job,"
said Bennett, who believes at least two employers that interviewed him
had no intention of hiring him or any citizen. "I was there just so
they could say they interviewed an American. The recruiter told me the
job went to an H-1B."

Bennett's experience led him to launch the Web site www.nomoreh1b.com,
a place where affected workers can commiserate and get the latest news.
He joins a swelling sea of critics who say the H-1B visa program does
not restrict foreign workers to specialty occupations with worker
shortages as intended, but displaces U.S. workers in favor of cheap
foreign labor, driving down wages.

As Congress prepares to reauthorize the controversial program for
another three years in the fall, foes are calling for safeguards to
stop the wholesale replacement of U.S. workers. They also want the
annual cap on H-1Bs to return to the 65,000 limit established in 1990.
The tech industry successfully lobbied for an expansion to 195,000 in
2000.

"It would be ridiculous for Congress to do anything but roll these
numbers back because of the state of the economy. A lot of tech workers
are suffering," said Michael Gildea, executive director of the
Department of Professional Employees, a labor union affiliated with the
AFL-CIO.

Gildea said the H-1B visa program does not take labor market conditions
into account.

Some have nicknamed the H-1B the "tech visa" due to its prevalence in
that industry. Unemployment among tech professionals has been estimated
at between 10 and 15 percent, compared to the national rate of 5.8 in
March. Gildea likened the H-1B's impact on tech workers to job losses
in the steel and textile industries decades ago.

"They told us to get ready for knowledge jobs. Well, they're farming
those out, too. It looks pretty bleak," he said.

After raising the cap steadily from 65,000 to 115,000 to 195,000, last
year only 79,100 new H-1B visas were issued, which critics say is
further proof that worker shortages, particularly in the tech industry,
are fabricated by employers trying to keep payroll costs down, Gildea
said.

Though the H-1B visa was designed to be temporary and petitioners must
overcome the assumption they will try to immigrate, many foreigners see
it as the first step to a green card. The visas, issued for three
years, may be extended once for a total of six years. A green card
candidate can work in the U.S. on a permit issued to them for as long
as the process takes.

"They could be in the country for 9 to 11 years. I don't think a 9- to
11-year program is temporary," Gildea said.

Angelo Vitalino, 41, a project/program manager who has been unemployed
for nearly a year, said he does not know if he has lost work to an H-1B
but "knowing the level of unemployment there is in the tech workforce,
it just doesn't make sense that we should be taking in foreign
workers," said Vitalino, who lives in New York with his wife, who isn't
working, and their three children.

As more tech workers struggle with long-term unemployment and stories
circulate about U.S. workers being forced to train their foreign
replacements, disgust is turning to activism. Last month, a group of
Stanford University students posted fliers inside two graduate
dormitories where foreign students live stating that visas are forcing
Americans into unemployment. Some labeled the students "racists" and
"xenophobes."

But some critics of the program say that visa holders are victims, too.
Norman Matloff, professor of computer sciences at the University of
California at Davis, believes the H-1B program abuses foreign workers
but most are too afraid of being sent home or losing their shot at a
green card to complain.

"The fact that I'm critical of the program doesn't mean I have a
problem with the people," said Matloff, who has presented his views on
foreign visas in testimony before Congress.

Many H-1Bs come from cultural backgrounds that teach them to do their
jobs, be respectful and not cause trouble, said Murali Krishna
Devarakonda, president of the Immigrants Support Network, formed in
1998 to deal with problems H-1Bs face. It boasts 18,000 members.

Devarakonda, who came to the U.S. in 1991 on a student visa, later
obtained an H-1B and finally got his green card in 2001, said the
administration of the H-1B visa is contrary to its basic premise--that
employers need foreign workers to fill shortages. He said the law is
written as if it is the foreign workers who need the employers.

"So the law puts our entire fate in the hands of the employer until we
get the green card," he said.

In 2000, Congress made the visa portable so that workers would not feel
trapped in their jobs. But that only solved part of the problem. Jim
Mills, an immigration attorney in Brick, N.J., said most of the H-1B
cases he handles deal with an employer's failure to pay H-1B workers
during down periods or not at all. Unlike a U.S. worker, if an H-1B is
laid off, the employer has to either keep paying his or her salary or
cancel the visa, he said.

"It's in their best interest to not pay these people and have them sit
around. Very often, they get the worker to sign a request for vacation
to get around the law," Mills said.

But making the visa portable allows foreign workers to hop from job to
job, putting them in direct competition with U.S. workers, which
defeats the purpose of the program, Gildea said.

"Before, if they lost their job, they were supposed to go home," he
added.

Technically, they are still supposed to go home but none of the three
federal agencies involved in the H-1B visa approval process enforce
this part of the statute, government officials said. The Labor
Department does investigate complaints by foreign workers against their
employers and awarded back wages to 580 workers last year totaling more
than $4.2 million, according to labor statistics.

Of course, tech workers on H-1Bs are being laid off, too. Tim Tsyganko
of the Ukraine remained in the U.S. illegally for more than two months
after being laid off as a network engineer in Dracut, Mass., late
January. He and his wife, Eugenia, are returning to Europe after two
years. He leaves behind his dreams of citizenship and a 15-year-old son
from a previous marriage.

"My money is almost gone. So I can't afford to stay here anymore," said
Tsyganko, who felt he was paid well and loved his job. "I really doubt
I can see (my son) in the future."

In the end, the problem U.S. workers have with the H-1B visa might take
care of itself.

"In India, the job market is better than it is over here," Devarakonda
said. "Many of them are choosing to go back."

Copyright ) 2003, Chicago Tribune

Support this Newsletter and ZaZona.com by donating:
www.zazona.com/Donations.htm

To Subscribe or Unsubscribe send an email to

Back to archives