Dear Vladimir Gendler:

Your letter to President Clinton supporting an increase in the cap on the number of temporary foreign "professional" workers admitted to the U.S. each year on H-1 B visas has been referred to this office for a reply. The Office of Workforce Security in the Employment and Training Administration Is responsible for administering foreign labor certiflcabon programs.

You may know that the Administration has stated its deeply held belief that the first step n increasing the availability of skilled workers to meet critical workforce needs must be raising the skills of U.S workers and helping the labor market work better to match employers with U.S workers. We have consistently stated that any consideration of short-term increasea In the number of H-1 B visas for temporary foreign workers to meet such skills needs must be accompanied by expanded efforts to educate and train U.S. workers for these jobs. As you may know, the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998, enacted as part of the omnibus budget for Fiscal Year 1999, provided for an increase in the number of visas for foreign professionals and also directed that a significant amount of funds be used to establiah demonstration programs or projects to provide technical skills training for U.S. workers, including both employed and unemployed workers.

The Administration has also sought substantive reforms of the H-1 B program for temporary foreign professionals since 1993, including requiring employers to make bona fide efforts to recruit and retain U.S. workers before hiring temporary foreign workers and prohibiting displacements of U.S. workers to replace them with temporary foreign workers. We believe these reforms, also enacted in the American Competitiveness and `Norkforce Improvement Act of 1998, will help target H-1 B usage to industries and employers that are truly experiencing skill shortages.

With regard to current efforts in the Congress to further increase the capon H-1B nonimmigrant visas, the Administration supports a reasonable mcrease in the number of H1 B visas that could be issued In any one year. Any such proposal must, however, be a balanced one and must be tied to measures: to target mare effectively workers at the highest skill levels; to increase fees to provide funding for enhanced job training; to deter employment fraud; to ensure that those obtaining or extending H-1 B status are eligible for such status; and to provide increased resources for H-1 B anti-fraud enforcement. At this time, however, in the midst of the deliberative process, the Department does not believe it would be appropriate to discuss the relative merits of any particular place of legislation.

In the meantime, the Department will continue its efforts to try to improve the balance between meeting employers' legitimate needs for specialized foreign workers with our obligation to mitigate adverse effects on the U.5 labor force.

I hope this information is helpful to you.