Huge H-1B Increase in Senate bill

Date: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 1:23 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

March 28, 2006 No. 1447

The Senate Judiciary is playing a very skillful shell game in which H-1B is
under the shell that nobody is looking at. They are hiding a humongous H-1B
increase in the Senate Judiciary immigration bill. With all the controversy
and discussion about illegal immigration, guest worker visas for farm
workers, and border enforcement, the H-1B increase and any potential
controversy is being swept up in the torrent.

Information is still coming in. Below I have an email sent by Mike Gildea
of the AFL-CIO, and an article that appeared in the Mercury News. I have
pieced together some of the information in both to summarize what the
Senate bill means to professional white collar workers. If you don't have
time to read this, just think the word "extinction", as in dinosaurs.

* Mandates a retroactive increase to 195,000 from the current 65,000 H-1B
visa cap (exclusive of existing exemptions) for the years of 2004-2006, in
effect allowing for a one time visa grab by employers of nearly 400,000
visas!

* The H-1B visa cap increases the 65,000 visa cap to 115,000 -- a 60% hike!
This would take effect in 2007.

* All existing exemptions will stay so effectively the number of H-1B visas
would rise to nearly 300,000 a year.

* The annual cap can increase by 20 percent after any year in which the
federal government reaches the limit. There are no provisions for moving
the cap down if all visas aren't used. This is a very open ended method to
increase the cap that effectively makes H-1B an unlimited visa.

* Taken together, within one year over 600,000 new foreign professionals
could flood the U.S. market.

* There would be an unlimited number of F-4 visas for students pursuing
advanced university degrees in science, technology, engineering or math.
Once they graduate they will get a visa that allows them to stay in the
U.S. to find work for up to a year, and when they get hired they will get
an automatic Green Card.

The Senate immigration bill is beginning to look like a behemoth that can't
be stopped.

This is just in from Roy Beck of NumbersUSA: "The Senate will have its
first procedural vote on the immigration debate soon. We don't think we
much care how that vote goes. But immediately afterwards, Senate Majority
Leader Frist (R-TN) will decide whether to start votes that will lead up to
trying to pass the Judiciary Committee's giant amnesty and greencard
increase that was approved last night 12-6."

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

Date: Tuesday, March 28, 2006

H-1B: Status update re Senate Immigration bill

In the immigration bill reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the
H-1b language remained the same as in the original Specter proposal.
Senator Grassley attempted to cap the program at 200,000 with no cap
exemptions - that amendment failed. Apparently no other efforts were made
to scale back the H-1B provisions.

To summarize, our letter to the Committee opposing H-1B increases detailed
the H-1B provisions of the Specter bill as follows:

Mandates a retroactive increase to 195,000 from the current 65,000 H-1B
visa cap (exclusive of existing exemptions) for the years of 2004-2006, in
effect allowing for a one time visa grab by employers of nearly 400,000
visas!
Increases the 65,000 visa cap to 115,000 -- a 60% hike!
Requires an automatic 20% annual hike in the new cap whenever the visas are
exhausted, thus establishing a new annual cap for each successive year.
This in effect rips the lid off of any meaningful annual visa limitation.
Adds still another open-ended exemption from the cap for any foreign
national that has an advanced degree in science, technology, engineering or
math from anywhere on the planet. At least the previous exemption authored
by the committee restricted such visas to foreign graduates of U.S.
institutions and limited it to 20,000 annually.

Taken together, within one year over 600,000 new foreign professionals
could flood the U.S. market, the result of which would be to inflict
serious economic harm on highly skilled, well educated American workers. We
view that outcome as well as the underlying proposal as ridiculous in the
extreme.

Initially, Congress intended that programs like H-1B would be limited in
number and duration sufficient to ameliorate the consequences of spot labor
shortages. Since existing statutory "safeguards" are laughable and agency
enforcement inept, this bill completes the metamorphosis of H-1B into a
long term, out of control mechanism that does little else than to wreak
economic havoc on our professionals while indenturing workers from abroad
seeking real economic opportunity.

Floor debate on the Senate bill is expected to last for the next several
days. Should the Senate be able to come to agreement on a final product,
the outcome re H-1B is likely to be horrific. Our only hope is that the
House stands firm in conference and opposes any guest worker initiatives.
But the resolve by conservatives in this regard will be tested by Bush
Administration support for more guest workers.

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

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/14203710.htm

Posted on Tue, Mar. 28, 2006

H-1B visa increase advances in Senate
WOULD ALLOW MORE FOREIGN WORKERS IN U.S.
By Jim Puzzanghera
Mercury News Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - A Senate committee voted Monday to significantly increase the
number of visas for highly skilled foreign workers as part of a
controversial immigration bill that faces an uncertain future in Congress.

Silicon Valley high-tech companies are strongly backing the proposed
increase in H-1B visas, which currently are capped at 65,000 a year.
Various exemptions in the program for certain types of jobs, such as those
with non-profit organizations, mean that approximately 220,000 foreigners a
year now actually receive the six-year visas.

The proposal approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee would increase the
annual cap from 65,000 to 115,000 beginning in 2007, while keeping all
those existing exemptions. It effectively would boost the number of H-1B
visas to nearly 300,000 a year.

The plan, written by committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., also would
automatically boost the annual cap by 20 percent after any year in which
the federal government reaches the limit. And the legislation would create
an unlimited number of F-4 visas for students pursuing advanced university
degrees in science, technology, engineering or math, that would allow them
to seek permanent residence in the United States if they find a job here.

High-tech companies say they need more H-1B visas because the improving
economy has made it difficult for them to find enough qualified Americans
in fields such as math and engineering.

``Hopefully the pendulum is kind of swinging toward the understanding that
these are the workers we want in the U.S. and want to keep in the U.S.,''
said Kara Calvert, director of government relations for the Information
Technology Industry Council, a trade group representing leading tech firms.

But some high-tech workers argue that no increase is needed. They say that
companies prefer less expensive foreigners to Americans and that part of
the reason high-tech employment has improved the past two years is because
the annual allotment of H-1B visas has gone down.

During the dot-com boom, Congress twice approved a temporary increase in
the number of H-1B visas, with the program topping out at 195,000 a year
from 2001 to 2003. The allotment reverted in 2004 to its pre-1998 level of
65,000.

But problems that originally led to the increased cap have returned. The
federal government received so many applications for the 2006 allotment
that it stopped accepting them on Aug. 12, more than two months before the
fiscal year began. President Bush called on Congress in February to
increase the annual cap, although he did not request a specific number.

After a failed attempt to increase the H-1B visa cap to 95,000 last year,
Specter included an increase in his immigration bill and boosted the number
to 115,000. During a daylong session Monday, the committee voted 12-6 to
approve the controversial immigration bill, which strengthens the Border
Patrol and allows illegal immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship without
first leaving the country.

The full Senate is expected to begin debating the bill today.

The Judiciary Committee voted 7-4 against a proposal by Sen. Charles
Grassley, R-Iowa, to increase the annual cap to 200,000, while eliminating
all the various exemptions.

``I thought 115,000 was ample. I had no one say to me they needed a 200,000
cap,'' said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who has been lobbied by the
tech industry to support an increase.

Grassley argued that eliminating the exemptions would make the program
easier to understand and would allow the visas to be issued based on market
forces, not on pre-determined allotments for different employers. But
Specter said Grassley's proposal would actually be a cut in the current
number of visas with the loss of the exemptions.

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