Business groups applaud immigration bill
Business groups applaud immigration bill
Date: Thursday, May 25, 2006 10:01 PM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1489 >>>>>
Soon after the Senate voted in favor of S. 2611 the celebrations began. The
first two articles below show why corporations are so happy, and the next
two explain why we are so screwed.
There has been a misunderstanding from the previous newsletter where I
wrote:
All employment based visa provisions remain unchanged, including
H-1B, H-2C, Green Cards, and F-4.
What I meant (and didn't quite word correctly) is that the visa increases
haven't changed since the original Specter bill. If the House goes along
with the Senate, we will soon see a very large expansion of guest worker
visas. Even if the House compromises with the Senate the increases to H-1B
may remain untouched.
This bill will have a devastating affect on all types of American workers
from low skilled laborers to highly-skilled engineers and scientists. When
you hear the term "comprehensive immigration bill" just think about how
comprehensively it will destroy what little is left of the once great
American middle class.
We are at a crisis point. The immigration bill now goes to a conference
committee with the House. I hate to sound negative, but I think it's
unlikely that we will stop this monster in the House.
I plan to go down fighting, how about all of you?
If you just want the numbers, scroll to the end of this newsletter for the
fact sheet on 2611.
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http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?dist=newsfinder&siteid=google&guid=%7BC0769BB3-2FDC-4F1A-9735-DB511AB57E42%7D&keyword=
Business groups applaud immigration bill
By MarketWatch
Last Update: 8:58 PM ET May 25, 2006
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Business groups don't think the Senate's
version of a wide-ranging immigration bill is perfect, but they like it a
lot better than the border-enforcement bill passed by the House in
December.
The Senate in a 62-36 vote Thursday afternoon approved a bill that would
create a guest-worker program, tighten the border and, most
controversially, give millions of illegal immigrants already in the country
the chance to eventually gain U.S. citizenship. See full story.
"While some significant issues remain to be resolved, this legislation
meets our major priorities and we are hopeful that our concerns can be
resolved by House and Senate conferees," said Randel Johnson, vice
president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a written statement.
The Chamber has spearheaded a fight against the House version of the bill,
which would require employers to verify the legal status of all existing
employees as well as new hires. It would also make all illegal aliens
currently in the country felons, offering neither a path to citizenship nor
a guest-worker program.
The Business Roundtable, a group made up of the CEOs of the nation's
largest corporations, and the National Association of Manufacturers, or
NAM, praised provisions in the Senate bill that would make changes to the
employment-based Green Card system and also increase the number of H-1B
visas for skilled workers from 65,000 to 115,000 by 2007. Some immigrants
with advanced decrees would be exempt from the caps.
"The Senate should be commended for recognizing that many U.S. companies
rely on highly educated foreign nationals, and that current policy
governing this situation is in dire need of reform," said Business
Roundtable President John J. Castellani.
The Senate bill also toughens employer-verification requirements. It would
require employers to use a new online system to verify the legal status of
new hires, and would boost fines for employers who hire illegal workers.
NAM President John Engler said his members are in favor of electronic
verification, but pointed to worries about potential bugs in the system.
"While we support the move to electronic verification, there is still much
work to be done to ensure that the system is easy to use, reliable, and
expedites the employment verification process," Engler said. "Employers
should not be subject to fines and penalties until the system is clearly
functioning."
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http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060525005856&newsLang=en
May 25, 2006 07:04 PM US Eastern Timezone
SIA Hails Passage of Legislation to Retain Highly Skilled Workers; Reforms
in Senate Bill Will Help U.S. Technology Companies
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 25, 2006--The Semiconductor Industry
Association (SIA) today expressed strong support for provisions in the
Senate-passed immigration bill that would help U.S. technology companies
hire and retain highly skilled foreign workers educated at U.S.
universities. The SIA urged the House to adopt in conference the H-1B and
green card provisions of the Senate bill.
"The immigration legislation passed by the Senate today contains reforms
that are of vital importance to the competitiveness of U.S. companies,"
said SIA President George Scalise. "Highly skilled scientists and engineers
are the key to retaining U.S. leadership in technology. Today we are not
producing enough native-born engineers and scientists to meet the needs of
our high-tech sector. The H-1B and green card reform legislation passed by
the Senate today would help technology companies in their efforts to hire
and retain the talented workers who are essential to remaining
competitive."
The SIA noted that the current limits on such visas were reached in August
2005, preventing U.S. employers from utilizing H-1B visas to hire workers
with critically needed advanced skills until October of 2006. According to
figures supplied by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS),
by the end of this month we will also have a backlog that, absent an
increase in the cap, will use all of next year's available H-1B visas.
The Senate bill increases the annual cap on H-1B visas from 65,000 to
115,000; creates a market-based cap to allow for future increases if market
condition warrant; and raises the green card cap to 650,000 for fiscal
years 2007-2016. The bill also exempts from the H-1B cap for workers who
have earned a masters or PhD degree in science, technology, engineering and
math (STEM) and exempts from the green card cap those workers with masters
and PhD STEM degrees who have worked in the U.S. for at least three years.
"The Congress must quickly pass legislation to keep foreign-born, U.S.
educated talent working for U.S. companies. Leadership in technology has
been critical to driving economic growth, enhancing productivity, improving
our standard of living, and ensuring national security. Leadership is not a
birthright -- it must be earned, and it takes highly skilled scientists and
engineers to earn leadership," Scalise concluded.
About the SIA
The SIA is the leading voice for the semiconductor industry and has
represented U.S. semiconductor companies since 1977. Collectively, the chip
industry employs a domestic workforce of 225,000 people. More information
about the SIA can be found at www.sia-online.org.
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http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_runner_060525_h1_b_visa_foreign_it.htm
May 25, 2006
H1-B Visa Foreign IT Workers and the Immigration Bill
IT Unemployment Is About To Take A BIG Jump UP!
By runner
The post-WWII G.I. Bill together with relatively low-tuition state
supported universities made it possible for almost any American to obtain a
college degree. These government funded programs made America the world
technology leader in the post-WWII era, but now, for the first time in
decades, a truly gigantic pool of well-educated, technically adept and
eager-to-please foreign labor is rapidly pushing the U.S. from its first
place position.
In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than
the United States. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor's
degrees as the United States, and they have six times as many graduates
majoring in engineering. The U.S. verses the world higher education score
has worsened every year since 2001.
This pool of college educated foreign talent, which includes hundreds of
millions of people in China and India alone, earn a fraction of what
American professionals and scientists earn. This is because the standard of
living in China and India combined with favorable currency exchange rates
make what would seem like a pauper's salary in the U.S. a highly attractive
"living wage" in those countries.
It is no accident that China and India graduate so many more engineers than
the U.S. The governments of China and India plan closely with industry and
universities to encourage their citizens to obtain four year and advanced
college degrees in math and the sciences. These governments then make every
possible effort to ensure their college graduates have well paying jobs
immediately upon graduation. And, graduates are not saddled with a lifetime
of college loan debt as are most U.S. graduates. These governments persuade
their citizens to obtain college degrees in math and science by providing
access to college and a virtually guaranteed job upon graduation. That is
what the U.S. was like when I obtained my degrees in Computer Science and
Business Administration from a state funded university back in the
1970s.
In contrast, today, the U.S government appears to be working closely with
industry and universities to discourage their citizens from obtaining four
year and advanced college degrees in math and the sciences. State and
Federal governments are slashing support for both universities and
students. U.S. students must increasingly borrow large sums of money to
finance their college educations.
According to the Higher Education Project, the volume of college loans has
increased 60 percent since 1998. The average college students debt at
graduation was about $17,500 before the GOP controlled congress cut an
additional $12 billion from student aid programs last winter. That $12
billion reduction in student aid translates to as much as $5,800 added on
to the already substantial $17,500 average student loan amount.
While government and industry are taking away college access with one hand,
they are just as busy taking away technolgy jobs with the other hand by
giving giving those jobs to foreign workers.
As the nation worried about the free trade export of manufacturing
and heavy industry jobs over the last two decades, politicians and
economists promised high tech jobs, particularly jobs in the computer
sciences, would replace lost manufacturing jobs in the future. This
was of course a fallacy because by the late-1980s U.S. manufacturing and
heavy industry companies heavily relied on computers and computer software
to support their business operations. Manufacturing and heavy industry
companies alone employed a small army of computer programmers and related
technicians during that time. As blue-collar manufacturing and heavy
industry jobs disappeared offshore the white-collar computer jobs of those
companies were guaranteed to follow soon after. Now, the rest of the U.S.
computer industry is following after those manufacturing-related
white-collar computer jobs to offshore locations.
Promises made by government and business leaders alike that high-tech jobs
would replace manufacturing jobs lost offshore convinced increasing numbers
of college students to major in computer science through the 1990s. The
number of students majoring in computer science peaked in 2002 just as U.S.
business began a wholesale transfer of technology jobs to low-cost foreign
technology workers during the brief recession precipitated by deflation of
the dot com bubble and the events of September 11, 2001.
From the very beginning of the Bush Administration U.S. companies have
lobbied Congress and President Bush extensively to obtain greater freedom
in hiring cheaper foreign technology workers via H-1B and L1 visa programs.
Concurrently, U.S. companies have also been busy relocating many technology
jobs offshore to India and China where salaries are a fraction of U.S.-base
technology salaries and where there is no health insurance cost because
the governments of those countries provide social health care for their
citizens.
H-1B and L1 visas and the offshoring of American technology jobs often go
hand-in-hand, as many companies import H-1B and L1 workers, force US
citizens to train them, then offshore the work and finally lay off their
U.S. staff. Many H-1B and L1 foreign workers even displace middle and upper
level managers who make on-going hiring decisions. Once in the
decision-making positions, H-1B foreign workers are free to claim they
cant find qualified American technology workers and must, therefore,
hire yet more H-1B foreign workers and send yet more work to their
compatriots offshore.
Why should American parents encourage their children to take extra math and
science in high school, thus risk lowing a grade point average with the
more challenging coarse work, and then risk taking massive loans to send
their kids to college for a technical degree when it looks like there is no
reasonable return on that investment? Students and their parents must
believe American business will have well paying technology jobs waiting for
them upon graduation or they will not make the technology education
investment.
According to a 2005 report by the College Board, which administers advanced
placement tests; the number of students taking advanced placement computer
science exams has dropped significantly since peaking in 2002. A total of
23,459 students took an advanced placement computer science test in 2002,
compared with 21,745 in 2003 and 20,414 in 2004. The United States now lags
behind 24 other countries in the percentage of college graduates awarded
science and engineering degrees. A disgrace!
American students and their parents have good reason to shy away from
college computer science or other science and engineering degree programs.
In March 2003, the American Engineering Association reported that the U.S.
high-tech sector lost 560,000 jobs--a 10 percent decline--between January
2001 and December 2002. During the same period, U.S. businesses sponsored
more than this number of low wage high-tech foreign workers, on H-1B and
other temporary visas, into the U.S. Today, national unemployment among
U.S.-born computer programmers has soared to a level higher than the
general unemployment average and its getting worse, not better!
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the U.S.
Information Technology workforce consists of 3.56 million people as of the
end of Q1 2006. Thats the largest IT workforce number since 2001, when
the number was 3.574 million, but its still a dismal number. Why? BLS
counts both the employed and the unemployed as part of the "IT workforce"
headline number. After adjusting the headline number to account for the IT
unemployment rate there are only 3.471 million IT workers actually employed
in the U.S. today, less than employed in 2001
It gets worse; America's population has grown by over 15 million people
since 2001 so the number of employed IT professionals has declined while
the population has grown by over 15 million. In 2001, 1.25 percent of all
Americans were employed in IT. In 2006, 1.19 percent of all Americans are
employed in IT.
Digging yet deeper into the BLS numbers shows that many hundreds of
thousands of IT workers who lost their jobs since 2002 and were lucky
enough to find other IT-related employment have done so at lower salaries
and are underemployed. Furthermore, people who don't find other IT-related
employment are dropped from BLS statistics altogether - they are considered
to have "left the labor force." The real IT unemployment rate is higher
than whatever figures BLS posts in any given year or quarter, because it
simply makes no allowance for the many hundreds of thousands of IT workers
who remain unemployed or have take a job at WalMart. They vanish from
statistical tables.
Yet, in the face of such unemployment, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and
other technology industry executives lament they are perplexed by the
declining enrollment in computer science programs at the nation's
universities. In March Gates personally added his voice to his company's
lobbying effort to expand the number of foreign-born computer scientists
allowed to work in this country under H-1B visas.
But many IT professionals question whether the scarcity of qualified
employees is as dire as Gates and others claim given the high IT worker
unemployment rate. There ARE unemployed U.S.-born computer scientists, many
with advanced degrees, available to fill the Microsoft positions; they just
cost more to employee than Chinese or Indian computer scientists.
Now the Bush Administration and his GOP controlled US Congress want to
further undercut U.S.-born students, their parents and the U.S. workforce
in general. President Bush and Congress are about to greatly expand the H1B
and L1 guest worker visa programs via the giant Immigration Bill, now
pending before US Congress.
There are proposals that would expand the annual H1B limit from 65,000 to
115,000 by excluding dependents which are now are counted against the cap
from the total, it could mean the entry of as many as 300,000 people a
year, with an option of raising the cap 20 per cent more each year.
If passed, the Bill would open US' doors to highly skilled immigrants for
science, math, technology and engineering jobs from India, China and other
nations.
The H1-B visa provisions were sought by Silicon Valley technology companies
and enjoy significant bipartisan support amid concern that the United
States might lose its lead in technology, according to a report in the San
Francisco Chronicle.
The provision for highly skilled workers enjoys support in both parties in
the Senate and in President George W Bush's administration after a raft of
high-profile studies have warned that the United States is not producing
enough math and science students and is in danger of losing its global edge
in innovation to India and China.
The new skilled immigration measures are part of a controversial 300-page
bill by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, now being
rewritten by the committee with the goal of reaching the Senate floor by
the end of the month.
Other provisions in the bill include a new F-4 visa category for students
pursuing advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or
mathematics. These students would be granted permanent residence if they
find a job in their field and pay a $1,000 fee toward scholarships and
training of US workers.
Other proposals in the bill include streamlining labor certification rules
for foreigners holding the desired advanced degrees from a US university.
Immigrants with advanced degrees in the desired fields, as well as those of
'extraordinary ability' and 'outstanding professors and researchers,' would
also get an exemption from the cap on employment-based green cards and
slots for permanent residence.
Other legislation being contemplated would also allow up to 600,000 skilled
professional guest workers to enter the U.S. in a single year. This would
be the biggest one time expansion of the H-1b visa program to date. These
are highly paid, highly qualified individuals. Salaries for these jobs at
Microsoft start at about $100,000 a year.
Legislation like this would result in displacing domestic workers in favor
of guest workers, stagnating and driving down wages and working conditions
further and it also does nothing to address the current abuses employees
face from the program.
Among the most blatant provisions:
7 A retroactive increase to 195,000 from the current 65,000 H-1B visa cap
for the years of 2004-2006, in effect allowing for a one time visa grab by
employers of nearly 400,000 visas!
7 Increases the 65,000 visa cap to 115,000 a 60% hike.
7 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.
7 Adds 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.
Within a year over 600,000 new foreign professionals could flood the U.S.
market, the resulting in serious economic harm on highly skilled,
well-educated American workers.
The transfer of high wage IT U.S. jobs to lower cost foreign workers via
offshoring and H-1B visas is currently contributing to unprecedented levels
of unemployment among American electrical, electronics and computer
engineers. Offshoring and H-1B visas also pose a very serious, long-term
challenge to the nation's leadership in technology and innovation, its
economic prosperity, and its military and homeland security.
Again, I ask; Why would parents encourage their children to take extra math
and science in high school and then risk taking massive loans to send them
to college for a technical degree when it looks like the corporate and
government systems are rigged against them getting a technology job upon
graduation? Where is the ROI in that?
Authors Bio: Bachelors of Science Degree in Computer Science and Business
Administration with 25 years of experience working in the Independent
Software Vendor Industry.
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http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/05/26/visas/
What's good for Bill Gates...
The Microsoft mogul says America needs more foreign engineers and
programmers to compete. Critics say it's all about cheap labor.
By Rebecca Clarren
May. 26, 2006 | As a group, engineers and computer programmers aren't
usually given to attending protest marches, which may explain why few
high-tech workers have filled the streets to protest the immigration reform
legislation currently being debated in Congress. But maybe they should
learn to carry cardboard signs. For proposed changes to immigration law
could have a severe impact on their industry.
Thursday the Senate passed legislation that will increase the number of
H-1B visas available for engineers and high-tech workers from 65,000 to
115,000, with an option of raising the cap an additional 20 percent every
year.
Proponents of the legislation -- the owners of high-tech companies such as
Microsoft and Intel, or the subcontractors who supply such places with
workers -- say that because of the dearth of engineering students currently
in college, there is a shortage of qualified candidates.
"The cap on H-1B visas has limited the high-tech industry's ability to
attract and retain the best and the brightest workers," says Ginny Terzano,
spokeswoman for Microsoft. "It's vital Congress take steps to reform
high-skilled immigration policies as soon as possible in order to ensure
that the U.S. economy remain competitive."
Bringing people into this country from places like India and China is
better for the local economy than shipping jobs overseas, says Carl Camden,
president of Kelly Services Inc., a Fortune 500 company based in Troy,
Mich. "These people are on the books, highly taxed and a great boon to the
communities they work in," says Camden. "The pipeline isn't full of
Americans who have I.T. degrees."
Just tell that to Mitch Besser. With a master's degree in software design
and development, 20 years experience, and a 4.0 GPA, Besser, 44, hasn't
been able to find full-time work since 2001. "If I can't find work,
something is up," says Besser, who lives in suburban Portland, Ore., and
has worked for places like Intel. He adds that in the past five years, most
of his colleagues in the tech industry have left town or switched jobs. "I
get infuriated when I hear that they can't find people."
In fact, unemployment is higher as a result of H-1B workers, according to a
2003 study for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Furthermore, between
2006 and 2011, new job creation in the computer and electronic products
industry is expected to drop from 1.3 million to 1.1 million, according to
economic data produced by Global Insight, a national economic forecasting
system used by the government.
Norm Matloff, a computer science professor at the University of California
at Davis, says the real reason companies want to expand the H-1B visa
program is because foreign workers are often entry-level employees who earn
less money. Foreign H-1B programmers earn, on average, $13,000 less than
U.S. workers, according to the Occupational Employment Statistics program
of the U.S. Department of Labor. Often, because these foreign hires are
recent graduates, they earn entry-level salaries, making it cheaper to hire
them than someone like Besser, with 20 years experience. "This is nothing
more complicated than cheap labor," says Matloff.
Gary Nashif, owner of ATSI Group, a Tigard, Ore., consulting company that
finds jobs for high-tech workers, acknowledges this trend. "There are
subcontractors that bring people over from India and their salaries are
usually lower, but their culture in India is different than ours."
Generally, industry lobbyists are quick with statistics and reports, but in
this case it appears they weren't needed. Neither Microsoft nor Intel would
reveal how many Ph.D.s or master's students they hired last year, and how
many they need for next year. When the companies and their lobbyists were
asked what data and reports they showed Congress to convince them of the
need for these new visas, they reported that they don't have any reports
and statistics. Marcus Courtney, president of WashTech/CWA, a tech workers
union, says as long as they have Bill Gates on their side, "they don't need
to use anything to substantiate their arguments."
"William Gates was in Washington, lobbying -- a pretty high-priced lobbyist
-- to come talk about the needs of Microsoft, a marvelous company,
high-tech, enormous advances for America -- he wants more people with
Ph.D.s and wants a larger quota of visas for those people to come in," Sen.
Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the bill's author, told Salon when asked what data
the industry had shown him. "We have accommodated that. And we have created
more opportunities for people to come in who are students."
Such ardor for Gates flows from both sides of the aisle. When asked about
reports and data presented to convince Democrats on the Judiciary Committee
that the U.S. didn't have the workforce it needed to fill these jobs, Tracy
Schmaler, spokesperson for the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee,
responded: "Did you know Bill Gates has been pretty high-profile on this?"
Critics of the bill, mainly academics and those who represent American tech
workers, say they have no voice on this issue; that Congress has been
blinded by campaign contributions of big companies. In 2004, Microsoft
alone spent $9.46 million on lobbying and hired 16 different firms; it
listed immigration as one of its top issues on lobbying disclosure forms,
according to data from the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. That
same year, computer and Internet industries spent $70.5 million on
lobbying.
"There is no greater case study to understand corporate power in politics,"
says Courtney of the tech workers union. "I could give you 75 reports that
prove that H-1B is a horribly flawed program that hurts American workers,
but it doesn't matter. As long as Bill Gates says there's a shortage, and
that's it, thanks for playing, game over, try again next session."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Fact Sheet about Legal Immigration and S. 2611
compiled by Rob
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NOTE: If any of you want a Word formatted version of this fact sheet, just
ask and I'll send you an attachment.
Permits up to 217 million legal immigrants into the United states over the
next 20 years, a number equal to 66 percent of the total current population
of the United States. This is a summary of the American middle class jobs
that will be sacrificed if 2611 becomes law.
* H-2C Workers: By creating a new (H-2C) visa category for "temporary low
skilled guest workers" with an annual cap of 325,000 that increases up to
20 percent each year the cap is met. Low skilled means everyone who doesn't
have an advanced degree in math, science, or engineering!
* H-4 Visa: A new visa category (H-4) for the immediate family members of
the future low-skilled workers (H-2C).
* H-1B: Increase the annual cap of 65,000 to 115,000, automatically
increase the new cap by 20 percent each year the cap is hit, and creates a
new exemption to the cap for anyone who has an "advanced degree in science,
technology, engineering, or math". H-1B affects workers such as computer
programmers, engineers, scientists, school teachers, nurses, accountants,
and fashion models.
H-1B workers are eligible for green cards and would be allowed to stay and
work in the United States for as long as it takes to process the green card
application.
* Employment Based Green Cards The bill would increase the annual cap on
employment-based green cards by more than 500 percent, upping the current
cap of 140,000 to 450,000 until 2016 and to 290,000 thereafter and
exempting all immediate family members that currently count against the cap
today (spouses, children and parents) from the newly escalated cap.
* F-4 Visas: This new visa allows foreign students to work as they go to
school, and then to look for work for up to one year after graduating. They
are put on a fast track to a Green Card if they do find work, so they don't
even have to get an H-1B first.
In today's competitive job market U.S. college students depend on
internships to get the experience to land a job when they graduate. The F-4
visa puts U.S. students in direct competition for internships with foreign
students. U.S. students who depend on internships to earn money while they
go to school will find that these once cherished opportunities are
evaporating. This will be another good reason for U.S. students to avoid
technical and science degree programs and it will contribute to the erosion
of our technological infrastructure.
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