Rep. Giffords bill to Triple Cap on H-1B Visas
Rep. Giffords bill to Triple Cap on H-1B Visas
Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 2:23 AM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 2066 -- 10/20/2009 >>>>>
Go here to see blog version: http://tinyurl.com/GiffordsBill
H-1B legislation has been quiet for awhile, but it looks like that is going to
change.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) introduced legislation to Congress that would
double the H-1B cap, and in some circumstances triple it. The way it would
work is that the yearly cap of 65,000 would be raised to 130,000 but if
130,000 H-1Bs were actually used, the cap would go up to 180,000 the following
year.
The Giffords bill will guarantee that during the next economic recovery
Americans will not get the jobs. It would be far more accurate to call this
the "Jobless Recovery Act" instead of "Innovation Employment Act". Bill Gates
praised the new bill so it is officially Microsoft certified junkware.
The Giffords bill is not on Thomas.gov yet. Today I called her office to ask
what the status of the bill is, and they said it is in Congress but not
formally introduced. The staffer was vague on dates but said it may be several
days to a week before the bill is formally introduced, and he hinted that
there may be some modifications to the text of the bill before it is
introduced. The staffer said that portions of the bill may still be in the
writing stage. It's probably safe to say that except for minor differences the
bill will be identical to her 2008 bill.
The article written by Grant Gross, which appears in Computerworld and CIO
contains some errors. First of all the title is misleading because it says the
cap would be doubled, but it could actually triple. The bill hasn t been
formally introduced as he indicated. Gross is probably correct about the
details of the bill, but he is may be getting confused by Giffords
2008 bill called the "Innovation Employment Act", HR 5630, which is available
on Thomas.gov. Both of those articles have comments that are worth reading.
The Gross article had some strangeness coming from the Giffords office to
justify this bill. Giffords and her PR secretary have been saying similar
things since 2008, so I believe the quote is accurate:
Giffords sees the importance of H-1Bs because Southern Arizona has
been growing as a hub for tech companies, Karamargin added.
"There's a need to stay competitive and keep the momentum growing,"
he added. "That means making sure the talent is available to drive
the local and national tech economy."
Folks, I'm here in Arizona and I have been to Southern Arizona many times.
I live in the Phoenix area which is considered central Arizona. The only hubs
you are going to see are from the wheels of the jeeps and trucks the coyotes
use to smuggle illegal aliens and drugs across the border. The city of Tucson
has been shedding what few high tech jobs it had, and there is nothing between
there and Mexico besides a few cowboy bars and junk food restaurants. If you
head out towards Tombstone or Naco you might be able to find a few technician
jobs installing the virtual border fence, but don't expect to find engineering
jobs since most of the equipment will probably come from China.
Arizona doesn't need more tech workers -- we have enough of them drawing
unemployment. The jobless techies in California would fill the needs of
Arizona about 1000 times over so Karamargin's claim that Arizona needs to
import techies from foreign countries is downright wacky.
Giffords' connections with Indian special interests make me believe that the
timing of this bill has something to do with the India Trade Policy Forum
meeting that will take place in India on October 26 where India will be
requesting an H-1B increase. We know India will be asking for more H-1Bs and
this bill will give them what they want. It wouldn't surprise me at all if
Giffords goes to that meeting in New Delhi, but so far her website doesn't
list it on her agenda. She signed a letter which makes me very
suspicious: "Building a Strategic Partnership: U.S.-India Relations in the
Wake of Mumbai".
http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/111/ackerman022609.pdf
Giffords seems to curry favors (sorry about the pun) from Indians. For
example, the "Taste of India" restaurant gave her campaign about $1,600 in
contributions. On a more serious note, she voted YES for the India Nuclear
Agreement.
The sleaziness doesn't stop with curry however. Make no mistake about it --
Giffords is a Bill Gates girl. She attended his sham hearing on March 2008
before the House Science and Technology Committee and she asked softball
questions about his desire to have unlimited H-1Bs. Giffords isn't just a
Gates groupie though -- Gates makes sure that she gets paid handsomely.
AmeriPAC gave her $10,000 and AmeriPAC gets funding from Microsoft.
The Giffords bill is a significant threat to large segments of the American
workforce. Take it very seriously!
REFERENCES:
Rep. Giffords Bill To Triple H-1B Visa Cap
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2009/10/21/rep-giffords-bill-to-triple-cap-on-h-1b-visas/
or
http://tinyurl.com/GiffordsBill
http://watchdog.net/empl/taste%20of%20india
Contributions by Taste of India
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2010&cid=N00027829&type=I
Top 20 Contributors Congressman Gabrielle Giffords 2007 - 2008
http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cmte=c00271338&cycle=2008AmeriPAC
http://giffords.house.gov/contact/
Giffords Website -- If you call the office be sure to ask for an immigration
or economic staffer because the front line staffers are clueless college kids.
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2009/10/20/india-to-ask-us-for-more-h-1b-visas/
India to ask US for more H-1B visas
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139623/Bill_would_double_cap_on_H_1B_visas
http://www.cio.com/article/505419/Bill_Would_Double_Cap_on_H_1B_Visas
Bill Would Double Cap on H-1B Visas
Grant Gross, IDG News Service
October 20, 2009
A bill introduced in the U.S. Congress would double the number of immigrant
worker visas available each year under the H-1B program, earning the
legislation praise from Microsoft.
The Truth About the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2009
The Innovation Employment Act, introduced by Representative Gabrielle
Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, late Thursday, would increase the cap in H-1B
visas from 65,000 a year to 130,000 a year. In addition, there would be no cap
on H-1B applications for foreign graduate students attending U.S.
colleges and studying science, technology and related fields. Currently,
there's a 20,000-a-year cap on visas for graduate students in all fields.
The legislation would increase the H-1B cap to 180,000 in the years 2010 to
2015 if the 130,000 cap is reached the year before.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates called for an increase in the H-1B visa cap
while testifying before the House of Representatives Science and Technology
Committee Wednesday. In recent years, the H-1B cap has been filled days -- or
even the same day -- after the government opened the application period.
"We provide the world's best universities ... and the students are not allowed
to stay and work in the country," Gates said Wednesday. "The fact is, [other
countries'] smartest people want to come here and that's a huge advantage to
us, and in a sense, we're turning them away."
Microsoft praised Giffords' bill. The legislation "would boost America's
competitiveness by giving U.S. employers the flexibility they need to hire the
best talent available to fill a severe shortage of qualified U.S.
high-skilled workers," Jack Krumholtz, management director of federal
government affairs for Microsoft, said in a statement. The bill would also
increase U.S. jobs; Microsoft hires an additional four people to support each
H-1B worker, Krumholtz said.
The U.S. government will begin accepting visa applications for next year in
April, and Microsoft predicted the cap would be filled the same day, as it was
in 2007. "The current system effectively prevents American companies from
hiring this year's foreign-born university graduates," Krumholtz added.
The Giffords' bill would also increase penalties for H-1B fraud and allows the
U.S. Department of Labor to reject H-1B applications for "clear indicators of
fraud," in addition the current rule of rejecting only applications that are
inaccurate or incomplete. The bill puts important safeguards on the H-1B
program in place, said C.J. Karamargin, a spokesman for Giffords.
The bill would prohibit companies from hiring H-1B workers, then outsourcing
them to other companies, he said. H-1B opponents have complained that
outsourcing companies are among the top users of H-1B visas.
The would also prohibit companies with more than 50 employees that have more
than half of their staff as H-1B workers from hiring more H-1Bs, and it would
prohibit employers from advertising jobs as available only to H-1B workers,
Karamargin said. "The bill would put some teeth in the Department of Labor's
oversight role" of the program, he said.
Giffords sees the importance of H-1Bs because Southern Arizona has been
growing as a hub for tech companies, Karamargin added. "There's a need to stay
competitive and keep the momentum growing," he added. "That means making sure
the talent is available to drive the local and national tech economy."
But despite some attempts at addressing H-1B fraud, Giffords' bill would do
little to address worker concerns about the program, said Ron Hira, a public
policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and former chairman
of the Career and Workforce Policy Committee at the Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers-USA (IEEE-USA).
"This bill takes none of the concerns raised by American technology workers
seriously," Hira said. He called the bill a "massive" increase in the H-1B
cap.
"This bill will basically do nothing to stem employers from using the H-1B
program as a source of cheap labor and to substitute for American workers,"
Hira said. "It doesn't require any kind of labor market test -- demonstrating
that a shortage actually exists before hiring an H-1B."
The bill doesn't fix "serious problems" in setting wage floors for H-1B
workers, Hira added. "No matter how one dresses up this bill, it would do
nothing to curb the practice of companies bringing in computer programmers for
$12 per hour to displace U.S. workers," he said. "If this bill were to be
passed as written, it would do serious damage to the American information
technology labor market, displacing many American workers, discouraging the
next generation of students from entering the career, and speed up the
offshoring of high-wage high-technology jobs."
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