Yale and Harvard idiotorials
Yale and Harvard idiotorials
Date: Monday, October 23, 2006 10:47 PM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1575 -- 10/23/2006 >>>>>
CompeteAmerica is busy planting idiotorials again but this time it's in
college newspapers. The Yale article is listed on the CompeteAmerika
website (mispelling intentional). The Harvard idiotorial isn't listed on
CompeteAmerica but it's highly unlikely that both of them came out about
the same time with such similar content.
For the most part these two op-eds are sob stories about foreign students
who can't get H-1B visas. I found the stories to be nothing but good news
as they interviewed numerous foreign students who are going to have to go
somewhere else besides the U.S. to work. Good riddance!
According to the Yale article employers are souring on H-1Bs because it's
just too dang hard to get a visa. If trends continue employers might
actually have to hire an American -- but keep in mind that neither article
offered that as a possibility.
"I suspect that it probably gives some employers pause because
they know the difficulties they might face in hiring
international students," she said.
Both articles propagandize for the Skil bill. One of the biggest farces in
the Skil bill is that it doubles the amount of time a foreign student can
hang around the U.S. looking for a job from 12 months to 24 months. If
these students were truly the "best and brightest" then it shouldn't be so
tough for them to get sponsored for a visa. Companies should be falling
head over heel for them!
Notice that these deadbeat students will hang around our country as long as
we let them. OPT should be reduced or eliminated, and this quote
illustrates why:
One glimmer of hope for these students is the Optional Practical
Training (OPT) program, which allows international students to
work in the U.S. for up to twelve months without a visa.
This newsletter has featured many of CompeteAmerika's idiotorial plants.
Until now, I assumed that the shills for hire wrote the entire idiotorials
by themselves and then simply handed them over to newspapers. Apparently
that's not the case -- they probably use templates and coaching. Cari Tuna,
the author of the Yale story, sent Norm Matloff some questions via email
for their article. Kind of makes me wonder whose idea it was to ask Matloff
questions, and who came up with the questions.
Including Matloff was a good idea to at least give a pretense of
objectivity. That's better than the large majority of CompeteAmerika's
idiotorials that are ususally 100% on the side of the cheap labor lobby.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.yaledailynews.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=33577
http://www.competeamerica.org/news/media_coverage/2006_10/20061005_foreign_alums.html
Published: Thursday, October 05, 2006
Foreign alums cope with visa troubles
By Cari Tuna
Staff Reporter
After studying at Yale for four years, Semih Salihoglu '06 was ready to
continue his life in the United States as a software engineer for Google in
New York City.
A Turkish citizen, Salihoglu was a computer science and economics double
major and holder of the highest grade-point average in Silliman College
after seven terms - an ideal candidate for many jobs in the United States.
But his plans were disrupted when he was denied the necessary visa for
employment for foreign workers with the equivalent of a bachelor's degree
or higher, the H-1B.
"It was shocking because no one thought there was any risk in not getting
an H-1B visa," Salihoglu said.
Salihoglu is one of many foreign graduating seniors who were unable to
obtain H-1B visas this year due to increasing demand. Months later, they
continue to deal with the ramifications of the visa shortage, and pending
immigration legislation may or may not raise the visa cap for the coming
fiscal year.
The congressionally mandated quota was reached more than two months earlier
in 2006 than it was last year, and before many students received their
diplomas, said Ann Kuhlman, director of the Office of International
Students and Scholars at Yale. Because the H-1B application requires proof
of at least a bachelor's degree, graduating seniors were at a significant
disadvantage to other visa applicants, who were able to apply from April 1,
she said.
"The difficulty is you never quite know when you are going to hit the
limitation," Kuhlman said. "I'm sure it was certainly a disappointment to
find out that you just missed it."
This year the cap was reached on May 26, only four days after Yale's
Commencement. The same limit was reached on Aug. 10 and Oct. 1 in 2005 and
2004, respectively, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
press releases.
At least 11 of the 113 international students in the Class of 2006 were
affected by the H-1B shortage, according to an e-mail survey conducted by
OISS Assistant Director Monica Weeks. But that figure is probably an
underestimate, as some affected graduates may not have received the e-mail
or chosen to respond, she said. Weeks said one Yale alumnus estimated that
at least 20 graduates had visa problems this year.
Complicated solutions
For the most part, companies were willing to work with students to find
solutions to fill the 16 months between graduation and Oct. 1, 2007, when
the next round of H-1B visas will take affect. Some graduates will remain
in the United States temporarily by using "optional practical training" -
up to 12 months of employment authorization provided by the international
student visa. They may take time off before starting work or transfer
abroad between the end of their OPT and next October.
Other graduates, like Matthew Konieczny '06, were permanently relocated to
offices overseas.
Konieczny, who is from Canada, was hired by Lehman Brothers in New York as
an investment banking analyst. The company did not inform Konieczny until
July that he had missed the visa application cutoff and would have to move
abroad to keep his job.
"It was obviously surprising that I didn't get a visa, because I'm from
Canada," he said. "I think my situation points out the fact that American
immigration policy has become so tight that it doesn't matter what country
you're from, what school you graduate from or where you are going to work."
Like many international students who plan to pursue careers in finance,
consulting or technology-related fields, both Salihoglu and Konieczny had
used a portion of their OPT time on summer internships in the United
States, leaving them less flexibility after graduation. The only way for
foreign graduates without H-1B status to start work is through OPT, said
Salihoglu, who will return to the United States in two weeks to begin his
job at Google and relocate to another Google office when his OPT expires.
"If you are lucky [and] you are working for a big company, they can send
you to London or to Europe," Salihoglu said. "Or they can send you on
vacation for three or four months, depending on how much [OPT] you have."
But a number of Ivy League alumni said they had heard of companies
retracting job offers in the wake of the visa shortage. Salihoglu said a
company might not be able to retain an international employee who did not
get a visa, regardless of his or her potential.
"There are companies that don't have offices outside the U.S., and if you
tell them you can't work for them for five months, they might have some
tendency to cancel your contract," he said.
Yale graduates were not the only ones affected by the shortage. While at
least one Yale student filed his paperwork in time, at some schools - such
as Harvard and Dartmouth - finals and graduation dates were scheduled as
late as June, well past the application deadline.
Harvard alumna Yue Zhou, an economics major from China, said she was
alarmed to learn that she had not received a visa to work for Citigroup in
the United States. Zhou, who now works in London, said she did not have
much influence over the visa application process.
"The corporate immigration lawyers took care of the process, and I only
followed their instructions to provide them with necessary documents," Zhou
said in an e-mail. "I was obviously unable to submit all the materials
before I graduated from Harvard, since the diploma is a required document."
Harvard alumnus Victor Bicalho, who was also unable to file his application
materials in time, said he is not aware of any Harvard students who secured
a visa.
Harvard's commencement took place on June 8, and final exams ended on May
26 - the day the visa limit was reached. At least six 2006 Harvard
graduates could not obtain visas.
Because students apply for the visa through the companies that hire them,
international student offices are unable to track how many seek to work in
the United States, said Robin Catmur, associate director of the Dartmouth
International Office.
At least one Yale alumnus, Australian citizen Jie Zhou '06, was able to
avoid the consequences of the H-1B shortage. On the advice of his employer,
Zhou applied for the E-3 visa - an equivalent of the H-1B exclusively
available to Australian citizens. Because 10,500 E-3 visas are available
each year, he was in a much better position than many of his international
counterparts.
"I think my experience was made relatively painless because [of] the
special Australian visa category [and] excellent support from the
immigration lawyers hired by my employer," he said in an e-mail.
A brief history of the H-1B
The H-1B is given to nonimmigrant foreign workers who are temporarily
employed in a "specialty occupation," such as education, law, business or
medicine, or as a highly skilled fashion model. This visa is the main route
by which non-American graduate and undergraduate students qualify for work
in the United States, Georgetown international migration professor Susan
Martin said.
A graduate's job must be related to the his or her field of study, said
Stephen Yale-Loehr, an American Immigration Lawyers Association member and
adjunct professor of law at Cornell,
"You have to be working in a job that requires your degree," Yale-Loehr
said. "You can't get a history degree from Yale and flip hamburgers with an
H-1B visa."
Current legislation limits the annual number of H-1B visas to 65,000, but
in the past the cap was raised due to an increased demand in the technology
job market.
The H-1B visa was established under the "Immigration Reform and Control Act
of 1990," which expanded opportunities for employment-based immigration
into the United States. The annual visa quota, which was initially set at
65,000, was exceeded for several years after the information technology
boom, Martin said. The cap was raised to 115,000 for the fiscal years 1999
and 2000 and eventually to 195,000 for 2001 to 2003.
"As long as the boom stayed, there was political support for doing that
because it was a win-win situation for everybody," said Martin, who is the
director of Georgetown's Institute for the Study of International
Migration.
The visa cap returned to 65,000 in October 2003, but since then an
additional 20,000 visas have been available annually to foreign workers
with a master's degree or higher.
Of the 65,000 H-1B visas, 6,800 are reserved for immigrants from Chile and
Singapore under the United States' free trade agreements with those
countries, but 6,000 of those from the last fiscal year were unused and
added to the 2006 visa pool.
Implications
The fact that the visa quota was filled so early this year may carry
significant implications for current international students. If the trend
continues and the H-1B quota is not increased, they may have no chance of
securing an employment visa. This may make companies more reluctant to
recruit international students, Kuhlman said.
"I suspect that it probably gives some employers pause because they know
the difficulties they might face in hiring international students," she
said.
Consequently, international students may have less flexibility after they
graduate and may have to explore options other than employment in the
United States, Kuhlman said.
"I think it may require these students to have a backup plan - either
working outside the U.S. or perhaps considering graduate school or a
professional degree a little earlier than they might have otherwise," she
said.
Yale Law School professor Peter Schuck, an immigration specialist, said he
thinks the visa limit has been a problem for some time. He said highly
educated and qualified H-1B holders are "extremely attractive immigrants,"
and both those who eventually become permanent residents and those who
return to their home countries can contribute to American competitiveness.
"The advantages to American business and American consumers from a robust
H-1B program are definitely great," Schuck said. "There is a very fierce
competition going on for people of these skills throughout the world, and
we should not disable ourselves from engaging in this competition and
winning it."
Politics and immigration
There are a number of parties involved in the debate, lobbying either for
or against expansion of the H-1B program. The two sides disagree on how the
H-1B visa program affects the U.S. economy and domestic workers. While the
H-1B visa is always a contentious issue in Congress, it may garner special
attention this year since immigration is an important issue in pre-election
debate, Kuhlman said.
Yale President Richard Levin said he has been concerned with the H-1B issue
for a number of years, especially in regard to recipients of advanced
degrees.
"It was one of my top issues when I was in Washington," Levin said,
referring to a September visit to Capitol Hill. "I've been working actively
on this front for some years."
Levin said he thinks his view that the H-1B quota should be expanded is
widely shared among university presidents. He also said there is support in
Washington for the expansion of the H-1B program, but that change will not
come without effort.
"It will take work, and the immigration bill that is currently unresolved
in Congress has many other controversial elements," Levin said. "But I
think if we continue to push for this, then we make some progress."
University administrators, the American Immigration Lawyers Association,
and technology employers are the three main groups lobbying in favor of
more H-1Bs, while national workers' groups and immigration reduction groups
are the primary opponents of the program, said University of California,
Davis computer science professor Norman Matloff.
"The politics behind it largely concern efforts by groups of workers -
particularly computer workers - who fear competition from the visa
holders," Schuck said.
Matloff, an outspoken critic of the H-1B program, said companies have used
the visas to underpay foreign workers and discriminate against older
citizens. The current law stipulates that H-1B holders must be paid the
"prevailing wage" and cannot be hired to break up a strike or replace U.S.
workers, but Matloff said there are enough loopholes to make some wage
depression and discrimination against U.S. workers perfectly legal.
"Virtually all employers, not just the small ones, violate the spirit ...
of the law in these ways," Matloff said in an e-mail. "Congress is highly
beholden to the industry's campaign donations, and writes legislation
accordingly."
Matloff said he believes the United States should be importing the "best
and the brightest," which is not necessarily implied by an Ivy League or
graduate degree or employment in a high-paying job.
But Konieczny said he thinks arguments such as Matloff's are hypocritical
because they support talented individuals entering the country to increase
American competitiveness but fear that competition with foreign workers
will keep Americans out of jobs. Konieczny said immigration and competition
have been important factors in the economic and social development of the
United States.
"The United States is a country built off of able foreigners coming in and
contributing," Konieczny said.
Yale-Loehr said that as long as current laws to prevent wage depression and
worker discrimination are enforced by the government, the H-1B program will
not have a detrimental impact on the American economy.
"Obviously anyone can violate the law," he said. "The important thing is
that the Labor Department ... has enough resources to do its job."
Economic evidence currently points to a need for more H-1B workers, and the
visa quota should be set with regard to that need, Yale-Loehr said.
"We believe that rather than having an artificial cap set by congress, the
marketplace should determine the number of H-1B visas handed out each
year," he said.
Konieczny said he thinks a major problem with the H-1B application process
is the quota approach, which is based on who applies first rather than who
is most qualified. This arbitrary cutoff eliminates competition because it
does not determine which applicants are the best to allow into the country.
"It's in the government's interest to invest in a screening process able to
screen more than 60,000 applications," he said. "You eliminate competition
and you eliminate the system that is aiming to diversify and enhance the
America population."
Future of the H-1B program
The H-1B visa issue might be slow to change because it is tied up in the
larger debate over immigration reform, Yale-Loehr said.
"A lot of immigration issues are not being solved until the larger issues
are solved," he said. "It's like anything in Congress - it takes a long
time to pass a major bill that seems controversial."
In the past year, both the House and the Senate passed immigration reform
bills, which are still pending in Congress. But the two bodies approached
the issue of immigration reform in very different ways.
The House bill - passed last December - focused on the strengthening of
border control, while the Senate bill - passed this past May - took a more
comprehensive approach to immigration reform.
If enacted, the Senate bill would increase the number of H-1B visas to
115,000 for one year and use "a market-based calculation" to determine the
cap for each subsequent year. The bill would also increase the quota by 20
percent if the previous year's quota is reached and would exempt aliens
with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or math from the
H-1B limit.
The House bill, the Senate bill, or some compromise may be approved during
Congress' lame-duck session after the general elections in November,
Yale-Loehr said.
Schuck said he thinks the immigration debate is often more political than
practical, and divisions do not necessarily fall along party lines.
"Immigration has strange political alliances," he said. "I would guess that
there are a number of Democrats as well as some restrictionist Republicans
who have supported the restriction of these visas."
The Bush administration has supported comprehensive immigration reform and
increasing avenues for foreign workers to gain employment legally,
according to CNN and the Washington Post, respectively.
Alumni differed on how much the H-1B shortage affected their lives. Some
students, like Konieczny, said not receiving H-1B status was highly
disruptive to their lives and future plans. But others said that while
changing their plans was inconvenient, not getting a visa this year will
not affect them greatly in the long-term.
"I am doing the same kind of job, just in a different office," Yue Zhou
said.
Current international students must be aware of the H-1B visa quota and
file their forms as soon as possible, alumni said.
"Apply early, as in April 1 early," Jarek Langer '06 said in an e-mail. "Do
not wait until you get your diploma. It will be too late."
Bicalho said students should be proactive and involved in the application
process.
"Take ownership over the process," Bicalho said. "Talk to the school's
international office early so they can start working with you. ... As soon
as you have an offer, know who are the lawyers your firm will use and
contact them so that you can work together."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.thecrimson.com/printerfriendly.aspx?ref=514810
Published: Thursday, October 05, 2006
Foreign alums cope with visa troubles
By Cari Tuna
Staff Reporter
After studying at Yale for four years, Semih Salihoglu '06 was ready to
continue his life in the United States as a software engineer for Google in
New York City.
A Turkish citizen, Salihoglu was a computer science and economics double
major and holder of the highest grade-point average in Silliman College
after seven terms - an ideal candidate for many jobs in the United States.
But his plans were disrupted when he was denied the necessary visa for
employment for foreign workers with the equivalent of a bachelor's degree
or higher, the H-1B.
"It was shocking because no one thought there was any risk in not getting
an H-1B visa," Salihoglu said.
Salihoglu is one of many foreign graduating seniors who were unable to
obtain H-1B visas this year due to increasing demand. Months later, they
continue to deal with the ramifications of the visa shortage, and pending
immigration legislation may or may not raise the visa cap for the coming
fiscal year.
The congressionally mandated quota was reached more than two months earlier
in 2006 than it was last year, and before many students received their
diplomas, said Ann Kuhlman, director of the Office of International
Students and Scholars at Yale. Because the H-1B application requires proof
of at least a bachelor's degree, graduating seniors were at a significant
disadvantage to other visa applicants, who were able to apply from April 1,
she said.
"The difficulty is you never quite know when you are going to hit the
limitation," Kuhlman said. "I'm sure it was certainly a disappointment to
find out that you just missed it."
This year the cap was reached on May 26, only four days after Yale's
Commencement. The same limit was reached on Aug. 10 and Oct. 1 in 2005 and
2004, respectively, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
press releases.
At least 11 of the 113 international students in the Class of 2006 were
affected by the H-1B shortage, according to an e-mail survey conducted by
OISS Assistant Director Monica Weeks. But that figure is probably an
underestimate, as some affected graduates may not have received the e-mail
or chosen to respond, she said. Weeks said one Yale alumnus estimated that
at least 20 graduates had visa problems this year.
Complicated solutions
For the most part, companies were willing to work with students to find
solutions to fill the 16 months between graduation and Oct. 1, 2007, when
the next round of H-1B visas will take affect. Some graduates will remain
in the United States temporarily by using "optional practical training" -
up to 12 months of employment authorization provided by the international
student visa. They may take time off before starting work or transfer
abroad between the end of their OPT and next October.
Other graduates, like Matthew Konieczny '06, were permanently relocated to
offices overseas.
Konieczny, who is from Canada, was hired by Lehman Brothers in New York as
an investment banking analyst. The company did not inform Konieczny until
July that he had missed the visa application cutoff and would have to move
abroad to keep his job.
"It was obviously surprising that I didn't get a visa, because I'm from
Canada," he said. "I think my situation points out the fact that American
immigration policy has become so tight that it doesn't matter what country
you're from, what school you graduate from or where you are going to work."
Like many international students who plan to pursue careers in finance,
consulting or technology-related fields, both Salihoglu and Konieczny had
used a portion of their OPT time on summer internships in the United
States, leaving them less flexibility after graduation. The only way for
foreign graduates without H-1B status to start work is through OPT, said
Salihoglu, who will return to the United States in two weeks to begin his
job at Google and relocate to another Google office when his OPT expires.
"If you are lucky [and] you are working for a big company, they can send
you to London or to Europe," Salihoglu said. "Or they can send you on
vacation for three or four months, depending on how much [OPT] you have."
But a number of Ivy League alumni said they had heard of companies
retracting job offers in the wake of the visa shortage. Salihoglu said a
company might not be able to retain an international employee who did not
get a visa, regardless of his or her potential.
"There are companies that don't have offices outside the U.S., and if you
tell them you can't work for them for five months, they might have some
tendency to cancel your contract," he said.
Yale graduates were not the only ones affected by the shortage. While at
least one Yale student filed his paperwork in time, at some schools - such
as Harvard and Dartmouth - finals and graduation dates were scheduled as
late as June, well past the application deadline.
Harvard alumna Yue Zhou, an economics major from China, said she was
alarmed to learn that she had not received a visa to work for Citigroup in
the United States. Zhou, who now works in London, said she did not have
much influence over the visa application process.
"The corporate immigration lawyers took care of the process, and I only
followed their instructions to provide them with necessary documents," Zhou
said in an e-mail. "I was obviously unable to submit all the materials
before I graduated from Harvard, since the diploma is a required document."
Harvard alumnus Victor Bicalho, who was also unable to file his application
materials in time, said he is not aware of any Harvard students who secured
a visa.
Harvard's commencement took place on June 8, and final exams ended on May
26 - the day the visa limit was reached. At least six 2006 Harvard
graduates could not obtain visas.
Because students apply for the visa through the companies that hire them,
international student offices are unable to track how many seek to work in
the United States, said Robin Catmur, associate director of the Dartmouth
International Office.
At least one Yale alumnus, Australian citizen Jie Zhou '06, was able to
avoid the consequences of the H-1B shortage. On the advice of his employer,
Zhou applied for the E-3 visa - an equivalent of the H-1B exclusively
available to Australian citizens. Because 10,500 E-3 visas are available
each year, he was in a much better position than many of his international
counterparts.
"I think my experience was made relatively painless because [of] the
special Australian visa category [and] excellent support from the
immigration lawyers hired by my employer," he said in an e-mail.
A brief history of the H-1B
The H-1B is given to nonimmigrant foreign workers who are temporarily
employed in a "specialty occupation," such as education, law, business or
medicine, or as a highly skilled fashion model. This visa is the main route
by which non-American graduate and undergraduate students qualify for work
in the United States, Georgetown international migration professor Susan
Martin said.
A graduate's job must be related to the his or her field of study, said
Stephen Yale-Loehr, an American Immigration Lawyers Association member and
adjunct professor of law at Cornell,
"You have to be working in a job that requires your degree," Yale-Loehr
said. "You can't get a history degree from Yale and flip hamburgers with an
H-1B visa."
Current legislation limits the annual number of H-1B visas to 65,000, but
in the past the cap was raised due to an increased demand in the technology
job market.
The H-1B visa was established under the "Immigration Reform and Control Act
of 1990," which expanded opportunities for employment-based immigration
into the United States. The annual visa quota, which was initially set at
65,000, was exceeded for several years after the information technology
boom, Martin said. The cap was raised to 115,000 for the fiscal years 1999
and 2000 and eventually to 195,000 for 2001 to 2003.
"As long as the boom stayed, there was political support for doing that
because it was a win-win situation for everybody," said Martin, who is the
director of Georgetown's Institute for the Study of International
Migration.
The visa cap returned to 65,000 in October 2003, but since then an
additional 20,000 visas have been available annually to foreign workers
with a master's degree or higher.
Of the 65,000 H-1B visas, 6,800 are reserved for immigrants from Chile and
Singapore under the United States' free trade agreements with those
countries, but 6,000 of those from the last fiscal year were unused and
added to the 2006 visa pool.
Implications
The fact that the visa quota was filled so early this year may carry
significant implications for current international students. If the trend
continues and the H-1B quota is not increased, they may have no chance of
securing an employment visa. This may make companies more reluctant to
recruit international students, Kuhlman said.
"I suspect that it probably gives some employers pause because they know
the difficulties they might face in hiring international students," she
said.
Consequently, international students may have less flexibility after they
graduate and may have to explore options other than employment in the
United States, Kuhlman said.
"I think it may require these students to have a backup plan - either
working outside the U.S. or perhaps considering graduate school or a
professional degree a little earlier than they might have otherwise," she
said.
Yale Law School professor Peter Schuck, an immigration specialist, said he
thinks the visa limit has been a problem for some time. He said highly
educated and qualified H-1B holders are "extremely attractive immigrants,"
and both those who eventually become permanent residents and those who
return to their home countries can contribute to American competitiveness.
"The advantages to American business and American consumers from a robust
H-1B program are definitely great," Schuck said. "There is a very fierce
competition going on for people of these skills throughout the world, and
we should not disable ourselves from engaging in this competition and
winning it."
Politics and immigration
There are a number of parties involved in the debate, lobbying either for
or against expansion of the H-1B program. The two sides disagree on how the
H-1B visa program affects the U.S. economy and domestic workers. While the
H-1B visa is always a contentious issue in Congress, it may garner special
attention this year since immigration is an important issue in pre-election
debate, Kuhlman said.
Yale President Richard Levin said he has been concerned with the H-1B issue
for a number of years, especially in regard to recipients of advanced
degrees.
"It was one of my top issues when I was in Washington," Levin said,
referring to a September visit to Capitol Hill. "I've been working actively
on this front for some years."
Levin said he thinks his view that the H-1B quota should be expanded is
widely shared among university presidents. He also said there is support in
Washington for the expansion of the H-1B program, but that change will not
come without effort.
"It will take work, and the immigration bill that is currently unresolved
in Congress has many other controversial elements," Levin said. "But I
think if we continue to push for this, then we make some progress."
University administrators, the American Immigration Lawyers Association,
and technology employers are the three main groups lobbying in favor of
more H-1Bs, while national workers' groups and immigration reduction groups
are the primary opponents of the program, said University of California,
Davis computer science professor Norman Matloff.
"The politics behind it largely concern efforts by groups of workers -
particularly computer workers - who fear competition from the visa
holders," Schuck said.
Matloff, an outspoken critic of the H-1B program, said companies have used
the visas to underpay foreign workers and discriminate against older
citizens. The current law stipulates that H-1B holders must be paid the
"prevailing wage" and cannot be hired to break up a strike or replace U.S.
workers, but Matloff said there are enough loopholes to make some wage
depression and discrimination against U.S. workers perfectly legal.
"Virtually all employers, not just the small ones, violate the spirit ...
of the law in these ways," Matloff said in an e-mail. "Congress is highly
beholden to the industry's campaign donations, and writes legislation
accordingly."
Matloff said he believes the United States should be importing the "best
and the brightest," which is not necessarily implied by an Ivy League or
graduate degree or employment in a high-paying job.
But Konieczny said he thinks arguments such as Matloff's are hypocritical
because they support talented individuals entering the country to increase
American competitiveness but fear that competition with foreign workers
will keep Americans out of jobs. Konieczny said immigration and competition
have been important factors in the economic and social development of the
United States.
"The United States is a country built off of able foreigners coming in and
contributing," Konieczny said.
Yale-Loehr said that as long as current laws to prevent wage depression and
worker discrimination are enforced by the government, the H-1B program will
not have a detrimental impact on the American economy.
"Obviously anyone can violate the law," he said. "The important thing is
that the Labor Department ... has enough resources to do its job."
Economic evidence currently points to a need for more H-1B workers, and the
visa quota should be set with regard to that need, Yale-Loehr said.
"We believe that rather than having an artificial cap set by congress, the
marketplace should determine the number of H-1B visas handed out each
year," he said.
Konieczny said he thinks a major problem with the H-1B application process
is the quota approach, which is based on who applies first rather than who
is most qualified. This arbitrary cutoff eliminates competition because it
does not determine which applicants are the best to allow into the country.
"It's in the government's interest to invest in a screening process able to
screen more than 60,000 applications," he said. "You eliminate competition
and you eliminate the system that is aiming to diversify and enhance the
America population."
Future of the H-1B program
The H-1B visa issue might be slow to change because it is tied up in the
larger debate over immigration reform, Yale-Loehr said.
"A lot of immigration issues are not being solved until the larger issues
are solved," he said. "It's like anything in Congress - it takes a long
time to pass a major bill that seems controversial."
In the past year, both the House and the Senate passed immigration reform
bills, which are still pending in Congress. But the two bodies approached
the issue of immigration reform in very different ways.
The House bill - passed last December - focused on the strengthening of
border control, while the Senate bill - passed this past May - took a more
comprehensive approach to immigration reform.
If enacted, the Senate bill would increase the number of H-1B visas to
115,000 for one year and use "a market-based calculation" to determine the
cap for each subsequent year. The bill would also increase the quota by 20
percent if the previous year's quota is reached and would exempt aliens
with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or math from the
H-1B limit.
The House bill, the Senate bill, or some compromise may be approved during
Congress' lame-duck session after the general elections in November,
Yale-Loehr said.
Schuck said he thinks the immigration debate is often more political than
practical, and divisions do not necessarily fall along party lines.
"Immigration has strange political alliances," he said. "I would guess that
there are a number of Democrats as well as some restrictionist Republicans
who have supported the restriction of these visas."
The Bush administration has supported comprehensive immigration reform and
increasing avenues for foreign workers to gain employment legally,
according to CNN and the Washington Post, respectively.
Alumni differed on how much the H-1B shortage affected their lives. Some
students, like Konieczny, said not receiving H-1B status was highly
disruptive to their lives and future plans. But others said that while
changing their plans was inconvenient, not getting a visa this year will
not affect them greatly in the long-term.
"I am doing the same kind of job, just in a different office," Yue Zhou
said.
Current international students must be aware of the H-1B visa quota and
file their forms as soon as possible, alumni said.
"Apply early, as in April 1 early," Jarek Langer '06 said in an e-mail. "Do
not wait until you get your diploma. It will be too late."
Bicalho said students should be proactive and involved in the application
process.
"Take ownership over the process," Bicalho said. "Talk to the school's
international office early so they can start working with you. ... As soon
as you have an offer, know who are the lawyers your firm will use and
contact them so that you can work together."
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