Programmers Guild

Programmers Guild response to the guy who calls us "Xenophobes Who Need To Go Back Into Their Caves"

2009-12-08T21:22:00.000-08:00

On December 5, 2009 Vivek Wadhwa posted "The Startup Visa And Why The Xenophobes Need To Go Back Into Their Caves."

The new “Startup visa” is sketched out here: http://startupvisa.com/about/ .

Vivek claims that this Startup visa "is about creating American jobs and moving innovation here which would otherwise happen in other countries. We can boost the economy without any cost to taxpayers. It’s not about admitting H-1B visa holders who sometimes make Americans compete for high-paying jobs, but bringing in entrepreneurs who expand the pie for everyone."

Vivek believes that everyone should see the benefit of his idea - and those who don't are "xenophobes": “I was convinced that my last BusinessWeek column on the Startup visa presented such a compelling argument that even these poor souls [aka American tech workers] would support it.”

He refers back to his December 2, 2009 commentary in BusinessWeek, where he makes the case:

"Here's how it would work. Suppose a talented engineer who is not a U.S. citizen has a great idea for a new type of search engine and wants to start a company. This entrepreneur wants to start that company in the U.S., where venture capital markets are the most mature, intellectual property laws are strong, and the talent level is high. It turns out that the would-be founder's search engine idea is actually very good. So a qualified U.S. investor decides to put real money—say, $250,000 to $500,000—into the startup. That investor could nominate the potential founder for a Founders Visa while also making a formal commitment to fund his or her company."

“The idea and the founder's résumé would then need to pass muster with a government or industry-appointed board of venture capitalists, financiers, or technology experts. After passing, the founder would be granted a permanent resident visa.”

“To open up visa slots, Ries, Feld and others propose altering an existing visa known as the EB-5, now for immigrant investors.”

Why Programmers Guild opposes the Startup Visa

1) The new visa category is not necessary. A startup company can already hire foreign talent to their venture via the H-1b and other visa categories. U.S. investors could form Yeehaw Search Engine venture and sponsor the “talented engineer who has the great idea.” (Programmers Guild opposes the H-1b lottery. Instead we advocate that priority be given to the highest skilled workers – with salary being the best proxy for skill.) Currently the H-1b cap has not been reached, so nothing is stopping a startup from using the H-1b to accomplish the intent of Vivek’s proposal.

2) The vast majority of start-ups fail. "A new type of search engine" is a great example - what are the odds that would succeed against the current search engine leaders? Most likely they would burn through the capital within a year. Then what? Vivek grants him a “permanent resident visa” – a green card. So, in spite of being an entrepreneurial failure, he will remain in the U.S. and search for a day-job, competing with 12 percent unemployed Americans.

3) Often founders of ventures prefer to hire people that they already know. A "Founder" from another country is likely to want to bring over his buddies from the homeland. Currently there is no provision that any of the workers hired must be Americans. We already see thousands of cases of Indians starting companies and hiring exclusively Indian immigrants – from Infosys down to the smallest bodyshop.

4) The Programmers Guild does not trust “government or industry-appointed board of venture capitalists, financiers, or technology experts.” We don’t want “unlimited H-1b” Bill Gates or “send the work offshore” http://www.carlyforcalifornia.info/ making immigration decisions. It’s unclear whether the public would be allowed to review and comment on the actions of this board – or whether U.S. immigration decisions would be done by secret panels.

5) The EB-5 Visa has been discredited as full of fraud and abuse, as reported by The Baltimore Sun “INS insiders profit on immigrant dreams,” February 20, 2000. At least the EB-5 required the person obtaining the visa to put up the funds. Under the Startup Visa the sponsored parties would have nothing vested. We believe that fraud and "shell ventures" would be rampant.

Development Design Group in Baltimore, MD, pays H-1b Architects $32,000 salary

2008-04-21T19:21:00.000-07:00

Monday, April 21, 2008 Washington post article "For Visas, The Demand Outstrips The Supply - Firms Say They Rely On Skilled Immigrants" profiled architectural design firm "Development Design Group" in Baltimore, MD.

Chief executive Roy Higgs is quoted:

"Some people think this is just about bringing in cheap labor, but it's not. We offer the same salaries and perks whether you're from Baltimore or Bangladesh . . . but we simply cannot find enough qualified U.S.-born staff to fuel our growth."

The Washington Post failed to disclose the salary these H-1b workers are paid. But according to the DOL's LCA database, the MEDIAN is about $42,000, while over 25% earn less than $35,000. Now go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, where one finds that the mean wage for an architect in Baltimore is $69,210.

What skills are required? Development Design Group's website does not list any "entry level" openings, so we have to presume that their pending H-1b applications require these skills - including 3 to 7 years of experience:

PROJECT ARCHITECTS / DESIGNERS

Possess a thorough knowledge, understanding and experience in all phases of the design process including Concept Design, Schematic Design, and Design Development

3 ~ 7 years experience in a multitude of areas including but not limited to retail, mixed-use, entertainment, planning, urban design and residential

Strong design and graphic skills and sketching abilities

Excellent organizational skills

Proficiency with AutoCAD / ADT, Photoshop and other software

We think the facts speak for themselves - Roy Higgs is a "typical" user of H-1b - enriching himself by securing skilled labor at blue-light special salary, shirking his obligation to hire Americans at a fair salary.

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords targets U.S. tech workers for displacement

2008-03-23T20:18:00.000-07:00

It is well documented that qualified U.S. workers are being displaced by H-1b workers, even at the current cap of 65,000. See the testimonials at HireAmericansFirst.org, for example.

What is Gifford's solution? To double the cap to 130,000. I left a message for staff C.J. Karamargin 520-881-3588 (or 202-225-2542) on March 20th but C.J. did not return my call.

According to the March 19th InfoWorld article "Bill would double cap on H-1B visas," she introduced the bill just one day after Bill Gates had testified before Congress - and no representatives of U.S. workers were invited to rebut Gates:

The Innovation Employment Act, introduced by Rep. 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... 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."

QUESTIONS FOR C.J

In my voicemail I asked C.J., roughly:

Can you name just two tech companies in Southern Arizona that cannot find qualified American tech workers, and failed to get H-1b workers to fill those positions due to the current H-1b cap or lottery?

According to Arizona Central CareerBuilder job search, there are 832 IT positions advertised. But there are also 1840 sales and marketing ads, and 2680 healthcare ads. So how did Rep. Giffords determine that IT workers rather than healthcare, sales, and marketing workers are what are needed to keep Arizona's economy strong?

The InfoWorld article states, "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." Can you please show us in the bill where the top users of H-1b "InfoSys, TCS, Wipro..." would be limited in their use of H-1b? We can't find any such language.

Why didn't Rep. Giffords arrange to hear from the U.S. IT workers who will be impacted by her bill before submitting it? Does she care more about the profits of multi-national corporations than about assuring that U.S. citizens have priority for U.S. jobs?

BusinessWeek exposes how Industry really uses H-1b workers

2008-02-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

Listening to Compete America one would think that H-1b workers are the "best and brightest" in the world, contributing to "U.S. global competiveness." But as the 1/31/08 BusinessWeek article "Are H-1B Workers Getting Bilked?" exposes, H-1b are being used by Indian consulting firms to bring in cheap labor, driving American consulting firms out of business, and displacing highly-skilled U.S. workers.

First, Indian consulting firm Patni undercut American workers when DOL approved the labor condition applications for a "prevailing wage" of $44,000 per year. This is far below the "$45 to $80 per hour" that the Yoh study found to be the average for U.S. workers with "high demand" skills, such as "Database Administrator" and "Application Developer."

What Patni didn't disclose was that the $44,000 "salary" presumed that their workers put in lots of overtime. Their base pay was only $11.72 an hour - they were expected to reach their "salary" by working overtime. But even with 23 days of overtime, one H-1b's annual pay worked out to only $35,305 in 2004.

As State Farm in Bloomington Illinois was laying off their American staff, the LCA Database reveals that Patni Computer Systems was bringing in hundreds of Indians on H-1b visas - many placed at State Farm. As mandated by the U.S. Congress, the Department of Labor rubber-stamped these LCAs (labor condition applications) for wages as low as $27,000 for computer programmers. H-1b workers must have a minimum of a BS degree and specialized skills.

Many of the LCAs were filed by Dayanand Allapur, Vice President HRD 617-914-8367. Patni's main number Cambridge, MA is 617-914-8000

Among the Americans who lost their jobs was George Moraetes. He reports having "seen 4 - 5 H1-b's living in a one bedroom apartment" and that the same pattern of H-1b usage was employed by GE.

Contrary to helping the U.S. remain "globally competitive," the top users of the H-1b program are Indian consulting firms. They are transferring U.S. jobs and technology back to India and increasing the U.S. trade deficit. Without the H-1b and L-1 visa programs much of this loss of U.S. tech leadership would not be possible.

Patni is headquartered in Mumbai, India. Their website provides roadmaps for transferring manufacturing offshore: http://www.patni.com/

The U.S. Congress needs to wake up to the imminent threat posed to the U.S. economy by shipping our manufacturing to China and now services to India. Or economy cannot sustain this growing trade deficit and gutting of U.S. infrastructure.

Flaws in University of Buffalo Spectrum's call for H-1b increase

2008-02-03T18:42:00.000-08:00

The original article is here:

http://spectrum.buffalo.edu/article.php?id=35050

This is an image of the front page where it run in the printed edition.

http://spectrum.buffalo.edu/images/frontpage/fp.pdf

ARTICLE: "Companies are very welcoming to international students because they can pay them less money than the local workers, even if their ability is equal," said Ping Lu, a sophomore management major from China

FACT: Industry would dispute this, claiming that H-1b has a "prevailing wage" requirement. We thank Ping for setting the record straight: H-1b workers are often preferred because they are willing to work cheaper for the opportunity to stay in the USA - and the "prevailing wage" is a sham.

ARTICLE: Henry Mok, a Malaysian student who graduated from UB with a B.S. in electrical engineering, applied to at least 80 jobs during his OPT in the Buffalo area. With only a few interviews and no job offers, Mok spent his summer perfecting his fishing skills at a friend's farm rather than his engineering expertise.

FACT: U.S. graduates are facing a similar job market. Mok's inability to find a job after sending 80 resumes refutes claims by industry that the H-1b cap needs to be raised to solve a labor shortage.

ARTICLE: Employers, in addition to being required by law to pay the fees, have to prove that they could not find any better qualified domestic workers instead.

FACT: The H-1b has no such requirement. Employers can overlook a stack of resumes from more qualified U.S. applicants and hire the H-1b worker instead. The impact on U.S. workers is evident at:

www.hireamericansfirst.org/members/h1b_harm_report.aspx

ARTICLE: The final step is to apply for the visa by April 1 - the first day applications are accepted. Students with a bachelor's degree are competing with over 100,000 others for an allotment of 45,000 visas.

FACT: The base cap is 65,000, not 45,000.

Programmers Guild presents at Sloan West Coast Program on Science and Engineering Workers

2008-01-20T12:11:00.000-08:00

On Friday January 18, 2008 Kim Berry represented the "perspective of the U.S. worker" at the Sloan West Coast Program on Science and Engineering Workers, held at UC Davis. PowerPoints of the presenters are in the above link, and an html-friendly version of my PowerPoint is here. The conference was the first of several being sponsored by a Sloan Foundation grant.

Norm Matloff's newsletter gave this account:

Kim Berry of the Programmer's Guild gave a really outstanding talk. I had seen his slides earlier, and they were fine, but his delivery greatly enhanced the content. Here was a real victim, speaking calmly yet with contained anger at the fact that all our respected institutions--both major political parties, the business community and academia--are complicit in maintaining that sham known as H-1B. His account of hiring decision meetings in which he participated, in which qualified American applicants were repeatedly rejected in favor of H-1Bs, ought to have been videotaped; his speech would have been just as effective the Cohen & Grigsby "TubeGate" videos.

I wish the entire event had been videotaped. But since no one else was taking video, and since some people might not want to ask or respond to hard questions on record, I chose not to tape my presentation. But here are a few of my talking points:

SLIDE 2: H-1b Influx is independent from labor market – 2000-2004 record H-1b influx

There is talk about revising the current 85,000 visa cap to a "market-based" cap. We have already tried a market-based cap: In 2001-2004 we had a virtual market-based cap. As documented by the San Jose Mercury News, during this period 25% to 50% of U.S. tech workers in Silicon Valley were pushed out of the job market. And during this same period H-1b influx was higher than at any time during the growth years of 1990-2000. How bad would the economy have to get before a "market-based" cap kicked in?

SLIDES 11-15 Americans are being displaced by H-1b’s lack of U.S. worker recruitment

http://www.hireamericansfirst.org/ was launched on January 13, 2008. Already we have gathered dozens of testimonials of substantial harm by the H-1b program. These 5 slides summarized those testimonials.

SLIDE 25 Programmers Guild H-1b Reforms

The closing slide summarized the reforms that the Guild believes are necessary to add some level of protection for U.S. workers:

True prevailing wage of at least what average Americans earn within the same job classifications.
H-1b and L-1 LCAs only approved after the employer has conducted good faith, transparent recruitment, and was unable to find any qualified U.S. candidates, at any price.
H-1b only granted to U.S. business entities with as direct hires - not to consulting firms (Indian or otherwise) to be re-shopped against American job seekers.
H-1b to include a $1,200 annual fee that would be used to fund $15,000 scholarships for American college students in STEM programs - consistent with legislation that Senator Sanders has introduced twice.

I liked Stan Sorscher's graphs showing how until about 1980 the economic gains of industrial advancements were shared at all wage levels "what's good for GM is good for America." But since then the gains have disproportionately gone to the top income levels (the elite? The CEOs?). He continued by speculating that globalization is a force that separates the good of business from the good of citizens (one of his last PPT slides).

Lisa Spiegel, immigration attorney Duane Morris had argued that America benefits from H-1b since the $1500 fee is used for training programs. During my presentation I asked how many people would sell their careers for $1500? No hands went up.

AMERICAN WORKERS DON'T WANT TRAINING?

As Norm reported in his newsletter, Jack Trumpbour of Harvard SEWP reported that Industry had told him that one thing they liked about workers in China is that 100% would take advantage of training programs, while in the USA only about 10% of workers were interested in training programs. I disputed this - in my experience at serveral companies, nearly 100% of workers were interested in and attended training programs when available. Jack Trumpbour stated that he would investigate this claim further. From PAGE 5 of Trumpbour's study:

However, many other managers in China implicitly faulted U.S. engineers by noting that 100 percent of Chinese engineers will take training programs offered by the company, while U.S. workers pursue these activities in puny single-digit percentages. IBM China specifically expressed disappointment about the low U.S. participation in company training, but other global companies in China soon confirmed this disparity.

Based on my experience I do not believe these claims by IBM managers that only 10% of workers in the USA would take advantage of company training programs. But we need some specific examples.

NFAP's Stuart Anderson's dishonest use of H-1b statistics

2007-12-18T06:21:00.000-08:00

According to a December 16, 2007 article in The Hindu Business Line, NFAP Executive Director Stuart Anderson has released a "study" titled "The impact of high-skill immigration restrictions on America." A key finding of his "study" is that "The 10 most cited outsourcing firms of:

Wipro,
Infosys,
TCS,
Satyam Computer Services,
Patni Computer Systems,
Cognizant Tech Solutions US,
HCL America,
Deloitte and Touche LLP,
Accenture, and
MphasiS

used "only" 14% of the total H-1b visas in 2006.

Anderson then makes the absurd leap to conclude that "The “vast majority of H-1B visas go to US high-tech companies, financial institutions, and US Universities.”

Anderson reaches these conclusions because he is paid by Industry to lobby to increase the flood of H-1b workers. Although he shows a total disregard for his fellow American citizens, he frets over the welfare of Indian companies. "“Any new restriction on high-skill immigration will hurt the US industry, as much as Indian firms."

In May 2007BusinessWeek published a list of the Top 200 H-1b users.

This list reveals that there are many other outsourcing firms that are not in the top 10, pushing the use of H-1b by outsourcing firms well about the 14% represented by NFAP, for example:

#11: Polaris Software Lab Ltd
#12: Convansys
#13: Syntel Consulting
#14: HTC Global Services
#15: (analysis in progress 12/19)

Rank	Employer	H1-B Visa Count
1	INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES	4,908
2	WIPRO	4,002
3	MICROSOFT	3,117
4	TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES	3,046
5	SATYAM COMPUTER SERVICES	2,880
6	COGNIZANT TECH SOLUTIONS U.S.	2,226
7	PATNI COMPUTER SYSTEMS	1,391
8	IBM	1,130
9	ORACLE	1,022
10	LARSEN & TOUBRO INFOTECH	947
11	HCL AMERICA	910
12	DELOITTE & TOUCHE	890
13	CISCO SYSTEMS	828
14	INTEL	828
15	I-FLEX SOLUTIONS	817
16	ERNST & YOUNG	774
17	TECH MAHINDRA AMERICAS	770
18	MOTOROLA	760
19	MPHASIS	751
20	DELOITTE CONSULTING	665
21	LANCESOFT	645
22	NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS	642
23	ACCENTURE	637
24	JPMORGAN CHASE	632
25	POLARIS SOFTWARE LAB INDIA	611
26	COVANSYS	611
27	PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS	591
28	QUALCOMM	533
29	GOLDMAN SACHS	529
30	KPMG	476
31	MARLABS	475
32	UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN	437
33	UNIV. OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO	434
34	UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA	432
35	THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY	432
36	SYNTEL CONSULTING	416
37	CITIGROUP GLOBAL MARKETS	413
38	BEARINGPOINT	413
39	UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND	404
40	KEANE	386
41	HTC GLOBAL SERVICES	382
42	IGATE MASTECH	378
43	HEXAWARE TECHNOLOGIES	362
44	CAPITAL ONE SERVICES	362
45	COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY	355
46	LEHMAN BROTHERS	352
47	YAHOO!	347
48	U.S. TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES	339
49	INTELLIGROUP	336
50	HEWLETT-PACKARD	333
51	RAPIDIGM	330
52	MERRILL LYNCH	329
53	GOOGLE	328
54	CITIBANK	322
55	DIS NATIONAL INSTS OF HEALTH DHHS	322
56	YALE UNIVERSITY	316
57	NOKIA	314
58	TEXAS INSTRUMENTS	313
59	CAPGEMINI	309
60	HARVARD UNIVERSITY	308
61	EMC	305
62	SUN MICROSYSTEMS	303
63	RITE AID	301
64	BLOOMBERG	298
65	GENERAL ELECTRIC	292
66	AMGEN	289
67	McKINSEY U.S.	286
68	MORGAN STANLEY	285
69	STANFORD UNIVERSITY	279
70	WASHINGTON UNIV. IN ST. LOUIS	278
71	VERIZON DATA SERVICES	276
72	NYC-HHC HARLEM HOSPITAL CENTER	276
73	UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH	275
74	INDIANA UNIVERSITY	273
75	OHIO STATE	271
76	EVEREST CONSULTING GROUP	269
77	UNIV. OF MINNESOTA	269
78	AMTEX SYSTEMS	268
79	UNIV. OF WISCONSIN AT MADISON	268
80	SUNY-STONY BROOK	262
81	AMAZON GLOBAL RESOURCES	262
82	CLEVELAND CLINIC FOUNDATION	256
83	DALLAS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT	255
84	UNIV. OF CALIF. AT DAVIS	254
85	NORTHWESTERN	251
86	SYNTEL	250
87	UNIV. OF MISSOURI AT COLUMBIA	247
88	GLOBALCYNEX	247
89	KANBAY	246
90	AMERICAN SOLUTIONS	242
91	UNIV. OF FLORIDA INTL. CENTER	240
92	UCLA	239
93	DUKE UNIV. MEDICAL CENTER	238
94	MOUNT SINAI MEDICAL CENTER	236
95	BANK OF AMERICA	236
96	SOFTWARE RESEARCH GROUP	234
97	BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE	234
98	MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL	232
99	CIBER	232
100	VERINON TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS	230
101	EVEREST BUSINESS SOLUTIONS	226
102	VOLT TECHNICAL RESOURCES	224
103	OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY	223
104	COMPUNNEL SOFTWARE GROUP	222
105	U.S. TECH SOLUTIONS	221
106	SYMANTEC	220
107	JSMN INTERNATIONAL	218
108	UBS	216
109	CVS PHARMACY	213
110	THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY	213
111	UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON	213
112	NORTEL NETWORKS	212
113	UNIV. OF CALIF. AT SAN FRANCISCO	211
114	UNIVERSITY OF MASS. MEDICAL SCHOOL	210
115	SPRINT/UNITED MANAGEMENT	209
116	HOUSTON INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT	209
117	PURDUE	208
118	GLOBAL CONSULTANTS	207
119	EMORY UNIVERSITY	207
120	UT HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER	207
121	UNIV. OF COLORADO	207
122	VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY	205
123	OBJECTWIN TECHNOLOGY	205
124	DIASPARK	204
125	HSBC BANK USA	203
126	EBUSINESS APPLICATION SOLUTIONS	203
127	BROADCOM	203
128	PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY (MD.) PUBLIC SCHS	203
129	MICRON TECHNOLOGY	202
130	COUNTRYWIDE HOME LOANS	198
131	TEXAS A&M	198
132	APPLIED MATERIALS	195
133	SCHLUMBERGER TECHNOLOGY	194
134	UNIVERSITY OF IOWA	194
135	IBM GLOBAL SVCS. INDIA	194
136	DELOITTE TAX	194
137	CUMMINS	193
138	ITECH U.S.	191
139	COMPUWARE	189
140	INTL. STUDENTS AND SCHOLARS OFFICE	186
141	UNIV. OF CALIF. AT SAN DIEGO	185
142	WALGREEN'S	184
143	HOWARD HUGHES MEDICAL INSTITUTE	184
144	USC	183
145	VISION SYSTEMS GROUP	182
146	T MOBILE USA	180
147	MULTIVISION	178
148	ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS	177
149	MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY	175
150	CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY	174
151	CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIV.	173
152	UNC AT CHAPEL HILL	173
153	UNIV. OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM	172
154	DEUTSCHE BANK	170
155	CATERPILLAR	170
156	HALLMARK GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES	169
157	CYBERTHINK	169
158	CORPORATE COMPUTER SERVICES	167
159	ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES	167
160	MEGASOFT CONSULTANTS	166
161	ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS	165
162	FREESCALE SEMICONDUCTOR	163
163	UT SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER	163
164	FIRST TEK TECHNOLOGIES	161
165	MICHIGAN STATE	161
166	RESEARCH FDN OF THE STATE UNIV OF	160
167	COMSYS SERVICES	160
168	VIRGINIA TECH	160
169	JUNIPER NETWORKS	160
170	UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA	158
171	IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY	157
172	UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA	157
173	FEDEX CORPORATE SERVICES	157
174	CREDIT SUISSE FIRST BOSTON	156
175	BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB	156
176	VERIZON SERVICES	156
177	EBAY	155
178	AJILON CONSULTING	154
179	GENERAL MOTORS	153
180	CAMO TECHNOLOGIES	152
181	MARVELL SEMICONDUCTOR	151
182	CMC AMERICAS	150
183	UT M.D. ANDERSON CANCER CENTER	149
184	NVIDIA	149
185	AT&T SERVICES	147
186	WEILL MEDICAL COLLEGE OF CORNELL	146
187	AXIOM SYSTEMS	146
188	WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY	146
189	MAYO CLINIC ROCHESTER	146
190	NORTH CAROLINA STATE	146
191	GENENTECH	146
192	MAKRO TECHNOLOGIES	145
193	SVAM INTERNATIONAL	144
194	MEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING CANCER	143
195	NUTECH INFORMATION SYSTEMS	143
196	XPEDITE TECHNOLOGIES	143
197	AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING	143
198	LOUISIANA STATE	142
199	FANNIE MAE	141
200	MINDTREE CONSULTING/TD>	141

Gary Scholten, CIO at Principal Financial Group Inc., pays H-1b programmers $43,000 while lobbying for more

2007-12-10T10:54:00.000-08:00

As reported in ComputerWorld: "National tech policy battle plays out in Iowa as caucus nears":

"Gary Scholten, a senior vice president and CIO at Principal Financial Group in Des Moines, . . . related his IT workforce concerns directly to three Democratic candidates: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Sens. Barack Obama and Christopher Dodd."

Among Gary's concerns is that the U.S. is not flooding in a sufficient number of H-1b workers, causing them to have to hire from the local community college, and to set up IT operations in Pune, India.

So what DIDN'T Gary tell the candidates?

Principal Financial Group Headquarters are at: 711 High Street / Des Moines, IA 50392-0001 USA. That is the same address as the LCAs for Principal Life Insurance Company. These LCAs reveal H-1B applications filed by Principal Life Insurance Company:

Approved H-1B applications: 110 Total jobs: 168

Principal's H-1b usage includes many software development positions paying between $43k - $50k.

Gary likely didn't mention that many of these H-1b come through training programs, in the USA, that are closed to American Citizens, for example, through Premier IT Solutions Inc - which cites "Principal Financial Group" among their top clients.

Gary also likely didn't mention that many of the "HELP WANTED" on their website are PERM FAKE JOB ADS, like THIS ONE - run solely to obtain green cards for their dozens of H-1b programmers:

Job Title: IT Application Analyst-(PeopleSoft)
Job ID: 208545
Location: IA - Des Moines

B.S. in computer science, information systems, engineering or related field (or foreign equivalent) plus 5 years experience in the job offered or in a related occupation such as Programmer Analyst or similar duties under a different job title. Experience to include ERP applications (PeopleSoft, Financial Suite, or HRMS suite), PeopleTools, and RDBMS.

THE PROBLEM IS APPARENT: Search for "IT" in Principal Financial Group's job openings. You'll find either positions for new graduates, or positions that require 3-6 years of experience in specific languages and applications. There are NO OPENINGS for Americans with BS degrees and several years of experience, but need the same "on the job training" that is extended to new graduates to get them up to speed.

And as long as employers can flood in H-1b programmers at $43,000, the market forces that would make that happen do not exist.

Shouldn't Presidential candidates get the full story?

Lou Dobbs challenges Bill Gates to debate H-1b visa

2007-11-15T05:44:00.000-08:00

Bill Gates has asked Congress for an "unlimited number" of H-1b visas. Watch Lou Dobbs ask Gates to discuss the matter. (We suspect that Gates will decline this opportunity to explain to the world his reasons for wanting an H-1b increase.) Lou Dobbs Transcript November 13, 2007 IS HERE

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There is no shortage of students studying for careers in Math and Science. There is a shortage of jobs. That's the simply bottom line finding of a new study from the Urban Institute.

The study shows that between 1985 and 2000 435,000 U.S. citizens and permanent residents a year graduated with Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees in Science and Engineering. That's three times the number of jobs in Science and Engineering added per year, 150,000 during that time.

Separately Michael Teitelbaum at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation told Congress last week that neither he nor a separate study by the RAND Corporation can find any evidence of worker shortages. These studies are not anomalies.

VIVEK WADHWA, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Bottom line is that all of our research at Duke and now at Harvard shows the same thing. That there is no shortage of engineers; there's no shortage of scientists. Companies aren't going abroad because of skills. They're going abroad because it's cheaper.

Bias against American tech workers by Dan Miller and Juliana Barbassa

2007-11-11T09:41:00.000-08:00

Eight firms used 87% of all H-1b applications in 2006 Harrisburg, PA – and all eight are owned and managed by Indian immigrants, with average salary around $45,000

Dear Dan Miller and Juliana Barbassa,

Please consider the Programmers Guild's objections to the bias in Dan's article Tech workers push for immigration reform in today's Patriot News. Dan's article is leveraged from a prior AP article Tech workers still looking for immigration change by Juliana Barbassa.

Note that I am quoted in the AP article, but in such a way that it appears that the Programmers Guild supports expansion of the green card quota, which we do not. Instead, as I had told Juliana on the phone, we believe that H-1b should only be granted in the rare cases where no qualified Americans are available - at any price. Then there would not be so many H-1b trying to use this temporary visa as a basis to obtain citizenship. (What I didn't say on the phone was that I don't believe a temporary work visa should even be a path to citizenship - it should only be used until an American can be located and trained to fill the job: If I took a job in Switzerland on a temporary work visa, I not would be so arrogant as to demand that I be granted Swiss citizenship.):

Legal immigrants who feel squeezed by limits on the number of green cards issued each year are trying to separate their complaints from the protests by illegal immigrants. . .

The green card application system is akin to ''indentured servitude,'' said Kim Berry, president of the Programmers' Guild, a group that opposes current work visa laws. ''It takes years for the green card sponsorship to happen, and they can't leave, can't ask for a raise unless they want to lose their place in line.''

The article states:

"It gets too frustrating sometimes," said Sandeep Bhatia, a software engineer from Mumbai, India, who first applied for a green card in 2001. Since then, Bhatia has completed an MBA.

Of what relevance is getting an MBA? Is there a shortage of MBA holders in the USA? I've known several programmers who obtained an MBA at night school. Typically it has no value in the programming profession. Note that none of the positions on the Harrisburg, PA Craigslist cite MBA as even a desired qualification.

The article states:

American-born tech workers who criticize the visa system argue the annual influx of 65,000 foreign workers like Bhatia takes jobs from Americans and puts a damper on all salaries.

Out of the entire article, that is the only sentence supporting the viewpoint of American Citizen (not "American-born") U.S. workers. Everyone that you quote in your article is a special interest - immigrant seeking citizenship, immigration attorney seeking to expand business, or business trying to maximize profit. You fail to interview a single U.S. worker or representative organization, nor evaluate whether the concerns are valid.

a) Please see the comments from the290 signers of the October 15th IEEE rebuttal letter. Many claim to have been directly harmed by H-1b, and many have indicated that they will speak to the media.

b) I have personally witnessed cases where qualified Americans were not hired solely because an H-1b applicant appeared to have slightly higher qualifications. But in every instance the Americans who were passed over were highly qualified to fill the positions. Bodyshops FIRST bring in H-1b workers, THEN they swamp job ads with the resumes of their H-1b staff. At that point it is ILLEGAL for employers to give any preference to Americans over temporary foreign workers.

c) Here are the H-1b applications for 2006 in Harrisburg, PA, sorted by number of employees sought.

We typically see that the largest H-1b users are Indian-run organizations that blatantly discriminate against workers who do not share their nationality, and pay below market wages.

Bingo. The top user is Mphasis Corporation with 90 applications, all within a salary range of $42,000 to $47,382. And as expected, the management of Mphasis Corporation are Indians.

The second largest user is Fortune 500 Systems, Ltd, requesting 20 "programmer analyst," all at a salary of $40,000. Here are the names of their software developers.Would you agree that this suggests a bias against hiring Americans? Their website conceals ownership information. But the LCA Records reveal that the CEO is DNYANOBA (KEN) KENDRE - the same as the CEO for the fourth largest user, below.

The third largest user is iBusiness Solution, LLC, requesting 17 programmer analysts with salary ranges from $48,000 to $52,000. They appear to be owned and managed by Indians. The LCA was filed by President Srivastava Pramod.

The fourth largest user is Global Heathcare Group - not IT related. CEO "DNYANOBA (KEN) KENDRE" is an Indian "from Latur district in Maharashtra" - same CEO as the second top user. Here he is shaking hands with the Governor Edward Rendell of PA, apparently getting congradulated for displacing skilled Americans with Indians earning $40,000 salary.

The fifth largest user is Satyam Computer Services, Ltd, a large Indian consulting firm, requesting 10 programmers with salaries ranging from $47,020 to $67,413.

The sixth largest user is Prima Technologies, LLC, requesting 7 "computer programmer" for $48,000. The LCAs reveal that the owner is "Nagesh Chilakapati" - and the only street address on their website is in India.

The seventh largest user is CLUTCHPOINT,LLC, requesting 4 "system analysts" for salaries of $48k and $49k. The LCAs reveal that the CEO is SIVARAMA KARISHNA GOGINENI - sounds Indian to me. Google does not even find a website for them. Their LCA address is 600 North 2nd Street, Suite # 500. To avoid the risk of libel, let's just call these facts "suspicious."

The eighth largest user is CYBRID, INC. requesting 3 "Software Engineer" for salaries of $60k to $65k. The LCAs reveal that president is "Kanthy Vaylay." Their website conceals ownership and management information. Google for their address "4807 Jonestown Road" suggests that this is a mail box drop. Their website is strikingly similar to Independent H1B which bills itself as a H-1b sponsorship bodyshop and with greencard services.

THESE EIGHT FIRMS ACCOUNT FOR 167 OF THE 192 H-1B APPLICATIONS IN HARRISBURG, PA, IN 2006

Why is it that the vast majority of businesses in Harrisburg are able to meet all of their staffing needs without a single H-1b visa, but that eight Indian-owned businesses account for 87% of all H-1b applications in that city?

This sampling supports the Programmers Guild's contention that H-1b are underpaid and used disproportionately by Indian bodyshops that discriminate against U.S. workers that are not the same nationality as the owners.

The article states:

Kelly Lewis, president and CEO of the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania, estimated that workers holding H-1B visas make a small number of high-tech employees in the midstate. "We're probably just in the general Harrisburg area short 500 to 1,000 technology professionals right now," Lewis said.

Indeed. TCCP represents several Indian-based bodyshops that would flood in as many H-1b consultants at $40k per year as possible, giving them a competitive advantage against firms that hire Americans at market wage.

The article states:

Tom Richwine is president of Immigration Support Services, a company in Silver Spring Twp. Richwine said his company helps about 1,000 employers nationwide process H-1B visas and green cards. H-1B visas represent just 0.7 percent of the nation's work force, "so it's not like we are displacing U.S. workers with foreigners," he said. Richwine said the federal government must provide more new H-1B visas and increase green cards available for high-tech workers. "We could easily absorb 150,000 [new H-1B visas] a year without any problem," he said. "We've got to provide a path to come to the U.S."

Tom is a biased in that he is probably getting rich on the backs of thousands of qualified American tech workers by processing H-1b applications. Given his bias, journalism standards suggest that an opposing interest should have been asked to rebut his claim.

FACT: H-1b are concentrated in the tech sector, which has about 3,600,000 workers. Over 500,000 H-1b have flooded into this sector since 2000, while the total number of jobs has remained flat.

FACT: Even the optimistic BLS projection for 2002-2012 project only 146,500 "[t]otal job openings due to growth and net replacements" annually "Computer and mathematical science occupations" (SEE PAGE 83)

FACT: The tens of thousands of Americans graduating with BS degrees in this field are facing unfair competition with skilled H-1b workers willing to work for $40,000 in order to get out of their overcrowded countries.

FACT: There is no requirement to even consider qualified Americans before sponsoring and H-1b, and industry lobbyists are adamantly opposed to adding any such protection. If such a protection were added and enforced, the number of H-1b entering the U.S. would drop substantially, and the "Green Card Backlog" bemoaned in this article would not be a factor.

FACT: The Craigslist postings for Software professionals do not suggest that any special labor shortage exists. There are only a few posts per day, just as for the other occupational categories.

Congress set to triple the H-1b quota in HR 4065!

2007-11-06T20:47:00.000-08:00

Author Rep. James Sensenbrenner [R-WI] represents HR 4065 as "To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to strengthen enforcement of the immigration laws, to enhance border security, and for other purposes."

However, section SEC. 1402 contains a provision that would increase the H-1b quota from 65,000 to between 130,000 and 195,000 per year.

The Programmers Guild has sent this FAX to the 10 sponsors.

FULL TEXT of the bill IS HERE.

Congressman Sensenbrenner HR 4065 Press Release on his website. (It provides no explanation for the H-1b increase.)

REQUEST: It is critical that you phone the following Congressmen and ask that they remove this H-1b provision, which has nothing to do with enhancing border security. You can reach them all toll free at 800-614-2803, and ask to be transferred to their office. You might reference the Programmers Guild fax.

1) Rep. Brian Bilbray [R-CA]
2) Rep. Howard Coble [R-NC]
3) Rep. David Dreier [R-CA]
4) Rep. Tom Feeney [R-FL]
5) Rep. Elton Gallegly [R-CA]
6) Rep. Robert Goodlatte [R-VA]
7) Rep. Daniel Lungren [R-CA]
8) Rep. Sue Myrick [R-NC]
9) Rep. Jon Porter [R-NV]
10) Rep. James Sensenbrenner [R-WI]

Ten questions for those who believe H-1B is about a shortage of American workers

2007-11-04T15:09:00.000-08:00

James Murphy raises ten questions for those who believe the H-1B is about a shortage of Americans to do the job:

1) If corporations get all the H-1Bs and green cards they want, can the long term consequence be anything other than total dependence on foreigners for technology?

2) Is Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, wrong? He testified to Congress: “Simply producing more engineers and scientists may not be the answer because the labor market for those workers will simply reflect lower wages or, perhaps, greater unemployment for those workers.”

3) Is Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University, a supported of more foreign workers (he is one), wrong? He says “…the problem isn't the supply, it's the demand…we have enough engineers and scientists. The problem is that the salaries aren't there.”

4) Why are law firms, like the notorious Cohen & Grigsby, holding seminars on how to legally avoid hiring qualified Americans? Lawrence Lebowitz’s famous quote explaining of the PERM application process to employers. "Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker, and that, in a sense, sounds funny, but it's what we are trying to do here."

5) Shortage at what price? My undergraduate economics professor made a big deal about it not making economic sense to claim a shortage without a price. For example, claiming that is a shortage of good five cent cigars makes sense. A claim that there is a shortage of cigars is foolish. There is no doubt that there is a shortage of college graduate programmers at $20,000 a year, is there a shortage at what the average American programmer makes? So the question is at what price?

6) If there is a shortage why are real wages going down?

7) Why is it that those employers who claim a shortage of American tech workers laying off so many of them?

8) Is socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrong? He says "What many of us have come to understand is that these H-1B visas are not being used to supplement the American workforce where we have shortages but, rather, H-1B visas are being used to replace American workers with lower cost foreign workers,"

9) Is Nobel economist Milton Friedman wrong when he says the H-1B is a subsidy? He said "There is no doubt, that the [H-1B] program is a benefit to their employers, enabling them to get workers at a lower wage, and to that extent, it is a subsidy."

10) Why not end the H-1B and other work visas and allow a free market solution? An increasing wage will attract more workers to science and engineering and solve any supply shortage that MAY exist. Free markets do not have shortages.

James Murphy has more than 30 years engineering and programing experience and is currently unemployed.

China's President vows computerized armed forces to win IT-based warfare

2007-11-04T08:15:00.001-08:00

IDG News Service reports that China's president Hu Jintao intends to "build strong armed forces through science and technology."

Hu explained, "To attain the strategic objective of building computerized armed forces and winning IT-based warfare, we will accelerate composite development of mechanization and computerization, carry out military training under IT-based conditions, modernize every aspect of logistics, intensify our efforts to train a new type of high-caliber military personnel in large numbers and change the mode of generating combat capabilities."

Are we crazy? We admit students from China into top U.S. universities and train them in the latest IT technology. We allow top U.S. tech firms to outsource and set up shop in China, providing on-the-job training to our military adversary. As we just reported, Cisco is helping to establish 300 vocational schools in China.

Microsoft and IBM have moved development centers to China. And unlike the USA, the Chinese government is helping their tech workers gain current skills: "The [Chinese] government has established 35 national schools to provide software training, especially in technologies such as .Net, Linux, Java, and Web services. Its goal is to have 800,000 trained software pros by the end of [2005]."

"Both military and civilian sectors in China are actively exploring the information warfare concept, which could be gradually developed into a corps of 'network warriors' able to defend China's telecommunications, command, and information networks, while uncovering vulnerabilities in foreign networks," according to Sinodefence.com, an independent China military-monitoring Web site based in the U.K.

Meanwhile the USA sinks its resources into killing and maiming tens of thousands of America's "best and brightest," fighting mostly imaginary terrorists in Iraq, watching the U.S. dollar lose 30% of its value over the past two years.

Cisco working with government to open 300 vocational training centers - in China!

2007-11-03T21:19:00.000-07:00

U.S. corporations argue for more H-1b workers in order to help America's "Global Competitiveness." So where is the outrage when U.S. corporations act contrary to U.S. interests?

Cisco is a large user of H-1b in the U.S., but to our knowledge has not establed any training facilities to the U.S. to allow Cisco to hire more Americans. But Cisco is working the Chinese goverment to open hundreds to vocational training centers in that country.

Cisco will put its capital to work in China in both direct and indirect ways. It will work with the government to open 300 new vocational training centers across China to teach network skills, with Cisco donating $6 million worth of equipment to those schools, known as the "Cisco Networking Academies." Cisco had previously helped the government open 200 such schools, and the company said 90,000 people have been trained.

It is hypocracy for U.S. companies to both be lobbying for more foreign workers in the U.S. under the guise of helping U.S. global competitiveness, while at the same time undermining our competitiveness by funding training opportunites for our competition.

This economic treason against the USA is being facilitated by the UN:

Following the G-8 Summit, Cisco Systems, Inc.,United Nations Development Program, the US Agency for International Development (Leland Initiative/EDDI), and United Nations Volunteers (UNITeS), announced the formation of this strategic partnership to help train students in Least Developed Countries (LDC) for jobs in the Internet economy.

Yappy Headed YOH wage study is flawed again

2007-10-26T05:25:00.000-07:00

As reported by InformationWeek, Yoh has prepared a press release that again proclaims that tech workers are being paid "near record wages."

First Yoh unethically downplays that these wages are only contract wages, which could be as short as one day. They bear no relation to the wages paid to full-time employees, which are substantially lower. Yoh should make that more clear in the future.

Yoh fails to disclose that their "all-time high" wage determination does not factor in inflation. They use a base of 100 in January 2001, reaching 113.60 in Week 36 of 2007, or a 13.6% increase in wages over 6.5 years.

But according to this BLS calculator, inflation during the same period would have raised 100 to 117.72.

Thus when adjusted for inflation, the Yoh study actually finds that IT contract wages have continued to erode during this decade.

Yoh's study is further evidence that H-1b are underpaid. While Yoh cited $50 and $80 per hour as only "average wages," The average H-1b programmer -- who presumably is being brought in because they have the "hot" skills -- is paid about $52,000, according to a 2005 study.

Virtually NO H-1b LCA is for $50 per hour, and I've never seen an LCA for a software developer approach the "average" wage of $80 per hour.

Yoh's website fails to disclose salary ranges for most of their positions. Yoh's LCA filing for H-1b are here - but most are not software development occupations.

We had addressed the bias in Yoh's studies last April - nothing has changed.

Microsoft propaganda falsely cites H-1b restrictions as basis for their Vancouver, Canada office

2007-07-11T05:52:00.000-07:00

The media has been buzzing with articles making claims like this in e-Commerce News - Microsoft Steps Across Border to Sidestep Immigration Rules

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) will open a software development center in Canada by the end of the year, a move that will enable the software giant to hire more foreign workers without running up against the limitations of U.S. immigration law.
Microsoft cofounder and Chairman Bill Gates has been among the most outspoken critics of the current limits on foreign workers who can enter the country. Gates has repeatedly pressed lawmakers to raise the cap on the number of so-called H-1B visas, which are given out to "highly skilled" workers.
A bill that would have raised the current cap of 65,000 visas each year -- part of a sweeping immigration reform measure -- failed to gain enough votes to stay alive in the U.S. Senate last week, dashing hopes that more workers would be let into the U.S. in the near term.

(Also See Paul McDougall's InformationWeek Blog Microsoft's Canada Plan Highlights Need For Immigration Reform.)

But only a few are picking up that immigration is a red herring. CNET got it right in Microsoft sings 'O Canada' amid immigration challenges:

"Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said that while the immigration issue was a factor, the company would be opening the center in Vancouver even if it were not for the immigration challenges. "

Reuters included this fact also, albeit buried as a virtual footnote in an article that mostly discusses the H-1b visa - Microsoft expands in Canada amid U.S. visa crunch:

Microsoft said in a statement that the Vancouver center will "allow the company to continue to recruit and retain highly skilled people affected by the immigration issues in the United States." But company spokesman Lou Gellos said Microsoft's frustration with the U.S. government's visa policy wasn't the only reason for the expansion in Canada. It is part of a larger program to diversify software development outside of Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, Gellos said. . . "We would be opening this center in Vancouver even if this visa situation didn't exist," Gellos said.

Furthermore it is not "news" that Microsoft is doing software development in Vancouver, Canada, as this 1992 article reveals: Canada: Microsoft opens workgroup software R&D facility

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA, 1992 JUL 28 (NB) -- Microsoft has opened a workgroup software development operation here, the only Microsoft research and development facility outside the United States that will develop products for world markets.

In short, Microsoft is pulling a PR stunt, timing this announcement to make it appear that it was related to failure of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform, which contained a massive H-1b increase provision. Industry raises similar false threats that they are offshoring due to a shortage of H-1b, when in fact H-1b is a primary tool in offshoring.

NASSCOM's claim that only "small Indian companies" abuse H-1b visa is absurd

2007-06-28T22:17:00.000-07:00

Last month U.S. Senators Durbin and Grassley wrote a letter to nine of the top Indian outsourcers regarding their use of H-1b, such as their wages, age of workers, number of U.S. citizens on staff, and their efforts to recruit Americans. To our knowledge none of the receipients have responded to the questions posed in that letter.

Instead the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) issued a statement that "there is little evidence of such fraud, or that restricting the number of H-1 B visas . . . will have any effect on visa fraud."

NASSCOM is being less than honest to the U.S. Senate - they have ignored the questions and raised the Red Herring of "fraud." The NASSCOM Executive Council is a "who's who" of Indian outsourcing firms, comprised of leaders of I-flex, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, and Mr. N Chandrasekaran, Executive Vice President of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

TCS is the number one user of combined H-1b and L-1 visas, with nearly 8000 applications in FY 2006.

We have already reported that TCS has boasted that it pays its H-1b workers 25% below market wages, and this this underpayment was its competitive advantage against American firms and U.S. workers.

While about half of TCS business is in the U.S., only about 1000 of their 90,000 employees are Americans. (Meanwhile TCS is planning to hire 5000 workers in Mexico, to assist with Perot's "giant sucking sound" of jobs.)

We also know that the thousands of TCS employees on L-1 visas can work in the U.S. for up to a year while still getting paid their foreign wage - $20,000 per year or less. These Mexicans that TCS is hiring will provide them an additional source of foreign workers that TCS can rotate into U.S. jobs and continue to pay them third-world wages, without the expense of international air fare.

Senators Durbin and Grassley have compiled a 354 page list of L-1 visa users. TCS is on top. They are asking the top users about their usage. We expect another Red Herring response from NASSCOM about "no fraud," avoiding whether they are displacing U.S. consulting firms that pay American wages by bringing in thousands of average skilled staff programmers on L-1 while paying them third world wages.

Congress: How is it not unfair competition to allow consulting firms to pay third world wages at U.S. jobs sites by rotating in workers from foreign sites? Might this be creating an incentive to NOT hire U.S. workers for U.S. jobs?

A large user of L-1 visa is Intel. During the same period that Intel in Folsom, California was laying of its American IT workers, I heard from multiple Indians on L-1 at Intel in Folsom that they and many other L-1 workers were not brought in for their skills. Instead they were new hires in India being brought to the U.S. for training, then would return to India to ramp up Intel operations there. U.S. training may be necessary since Intel blames the Bangalore division for botching the Whitefield Xeon processor project a few years ago.

Meanwhile the stress of being forced to lay off highly skilled Americans led to the suicide of a top manager at Intel Folsom in 2003. As Intel brings in foreign workers, they do not even attend career day at nearby CSU Sacramento.

While under the “spirit of the law” TCS is a bodyshop, and thus all of its employees “provide labor for hire for unaffiliated employers," it appears that under the letter of the law TCS can continue to second-source L-1 workers by a) assuring that the L-1 reports to a TCS employee, and b) assuring that the TCS employee is providing a service related to a contract that TCS holds with the client:

L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2004, signed into law December 8, 2004
SEC. 412. NONIMMIGRANT L-1 VISA CATEGORY.(a) IN GENERAL- Section 214(c)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1184(c)(2)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
(F) An alien who will serve in a capacity involving specialized knowledge with respect to an employer for purposes of section 101(a)(15)(L) and will be stationed primarily at the worksite of an employer other than the petitioning employer or its affiliate, subsidiary, or parent shall not be eligible for classification under section 101(a)(15)(L) if—
(i) the alien will be controlled and supervised principally by such unaffiliated employer; or
(ii) the placement of the alien at the worksite of the unaffiliated employer is essentially an arrangement to provide labor for hire for the unaffiliated employer, rather than a placement in connection with the provision of a product or service for which specialized knowledge specific to the petitioning employer is necessary.
See INA § 214(c)(2)(F), 8 U.S.C. § 1184(c)(2)(F), as added by Pub. L. No. 108-649, Sec 412(a).

Microsoft, Oracle, and Google demand that H-1b remain a source of cheap labor

2007-06-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

Microsoft, Oracle, and Google are lobbying the Senate for an increase in the H-1b visa quota, arguing that they have thousands of job openings that they cannot fill with Americans. But is that the true motive?

The DOL prevailing is split into four levels, with level one being about the 17th percentile of what average Americans are paid for the same job classifications. Currently most H-1b use the level one wage. Senator Durbin sponsored an amendment whereby only 30% of the H-1b at any company could be paid at level one. (The remainder could be paid at level two - which would still be below average.)

Oracle's vice president Robert Hoffman, who speaks for CompeteAmerica, opposes the amendment. "Thirty percent is an artificial barrier," said Hoffman.

Why does Hoffman oppose the amendment? Here are the DOL wages for Computer Programmer in Los Angeles:

Level 1 Wage: $21.59 hour - $44,907 year
Level 2 Wage: $27.88 hour - $57,990 year
Level 3 Wage: $34.18 hour - $71,094 year
Level 4 Wage: $40.47 hour - $84,178 year

The wage for an average-skilled American computer programmer in Los Angeles is over $64,000 per year. Yet Oracle objects to having to pay their H-1b workers more than $44,907.

How do we know that Microsoft, Oracle, and Google do not need H-1b due to a labor shortage?

According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft received résumés from about 100,000 graduating students in 2004, screened 15,000 of them, interviewed 3,500, and hired 1,000. Microsoft receives about 60,000 résumés a month for its 2,000 open positions.

Working at Google is among the top choices of U.S. graduates, flooding Google with 1300 resumes per DAY.

YouTube-Gate: Cohen & Grigsby train how to NOT hire qualified Americans

2007-06-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

For those under age 40, "YouTube-Gate" is a twist on the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon. Our objective is that Congress end these H-1b, PERM, and related employment-based immigration scandals by revising the statutes to provide true protection for U.S. workers.

Our five-minute YouTube of an immigration seminar by the law firm of Cohen & Grigsby has received over 80,000 hits on YouTube, and resulted in major media coverage. The video prompted Senator Charles Grassley and Congressman Lamar Smith to write a letter to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to investigate whether U.S. companies are abusing the H-1B visa program.

Today we documented that three of the eight IT classified ads in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review today are suspect fake PERM ads. (We need a hard-copy of the June 24th Philadelphia Daily News.)

We also expose the Cohen & Grigsby client companies that are running the fake job ads. The client with the most H-1b processing is foreign outsourcing firm Hexaware. These H-1bs harm the U.S. economy by facilitating the transfer of U.S. jobs and technology overseas. And Congress has an obligation to suspend laws that harm our country.

Prevailing wage? In their second video Cohen & Grigsby cite the "prevailing wage" requirement of H-1b. The majority of H-1b programmers use the Level One prevailing wage. The Level One prevailing wage for Lawyer in Philadelphia is $24.75 hour! I doubt that the attorneys in this video would contend that wage would protect them from displacement.

TIP: This website http://video.qooqle.jp/dl/ is one of many that allows you to download YouTube videos. (This is how we grabbed these training videos before the law firm removed them.)

Immigration attorney Philip Boyle argues that H-1b puts upward pressure on the salaries of U.S. software professionals (we respectfully disagree)

2007-06-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

In his commentary "In My Turn: Immigration reform -- Vermont style," immigration attorney Philip Boyle make the outrageous claim that the H-1b program actually increases the wages of U.S. software professionals, writing:

"H-1B workers must be paid prevailing wage or better. Hence, these workers have a positive impact on wages which a tax would thwart."

If Philip Boyle is sincere - which, as an attorney is highly unlikely - then he should advocate for flooding in foreign immigation attorneys into Vermont. After all, the Level One DOL prevailing wage (which is applied for most H-1b applications) for LAWYER of $25.65 hour - $53,352 year would certainly put upward pressure on his meager salary.

The reporters at the Burlington Free Press should also rally for more H-1b reporters, as their DOL prevailing wage of $12.65 hour - $26,312 year would put upward pressure on their salaries.

By far largest user of H-1b in Vermont in 2006 was iTech. iTech LCA wages are here – as low as $36,000 minimum BS degree and specialized knowledge. iTech made the Programmers Guild “lowest paid” list. ITech is owned by an immigrant from India and is engaged in shipping work back to India, the same as the firms that have yet to respond to the Durbin/Grassley inquiry.

Boyle argues that the H-1b cap should be raised because H-1b is used to hire new grads from Vermont universities. But not one of iTech’s openings is for new grads – all require at least 2+ years of experience.

(Boyle ignores an alternate solution of giving H-1b preference to U.S. grads - or to eliminate H-1b entirely and allow supply/demand forces to draw more Americans to pursue advanced degrees – that same force that draws sufficient Americans to pursue law degrees.)

The reason iTech uses H-1b is not because no Americans are available, but rather because they hire disproportionately Indians from India – not graduates from Vermont colleges, as Boyle alleges. (Of the 80 iTech green card certifications in 2005 and 2006, 77 were for workers from India.)

iTech is second only to Goldstone Technologies in 2000-2006 LCA filings in Vermont. Goldstone is an Indian company that uses H-1b because they don’t hire Americans. (On p.22 of John Miano’s study he found that Goldstone wage are $12,000 below Expected OES wages.)

Here is an ITECH AD TO HELP PROCESS THEIR EMPLOYEES’ GREEN CARD APPLICATIONS. This person will administrate the PERM job ads that reject qualified American job seekers, as explained by the immigration lawyers in the Cohen & Grigsby video. PERM ads are described at www.programmersguild.org/RIR/

Philip Boyle does not care about Americans getting American jobs because he only profits when American jobs get filled by foreigners. If he truly belived that flooding in H-1b workers would boost wages rather than displace Americans, he would be calling for more H-1b within his own profession. As it stands, we call him "Liar Liar."

Patni Computer Systems H-1b settlement fails to compensate American Worker victims

2007-06-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

As reported by AHN Media Corp:

Patni Computer Systems Inc. has agreed to pay $2.4 million in back wages as part of a settlement with government authorities who claim the company underpaid employees recruited under the H-1B employment visa. . . Patni is one of the nine IT companies that U.S. legislators last month asked to explain their use of the H-1B visa. The issue with wages is that under the H-1B work visas, companies are supposed to pay the workers it brings into the country the prevailing U.S. wages for those jobs so that foreign labor doesn't unfairly compete with American labor for jobs. The company, which has about 13,000 employees, was awarded 1,391 H-1B visas in 2006.

MATH REALITY CHECK: $2.4 million / 13,000 = $185 per employee. This is an insignificant penalty for Patni, which earns $350 million in annual revenue.

PATNI IS A BODYSHOP: They produce nothing of value. Instead they displace American workers at American companies. According to their July 2006 SEC filing:

“We derive a significant portion of our revenues from a limited number of clients in a few select industries. In 2003, 2004 and 2005 our largest client and one of our principal shareholders, General Electric, accounted for 41.2%, 31.7% and 22.1% of our revenues and our second largest client, State Farm Insurance, accounted for 17.4%, 14.9% and 11.5% of our revenues.” . . . Our attrition rates have been high due to a highly competitive labor market in India. . . . We are currently cooperating with the US Department of Labor with respect to compliance matters related to our past and present labor practices. We estimate the liability to be up to $2 million. . . . Most of our employees are Indian nationals. The ability of our software professionals to work in the United States, Europe and in other countries depends on our ability to obtain necessary visas and work permits. As of December 31, 2005, a majority of our software professionals in the United States held H-1B visas . . Wage costs in India have historically been significantly lower than wage costs in the United States and Europe for comparably skilled professionals, which has been one of our competitive strengths. . . Presently, we benefit from the tax holidays given by the Government of India forthe export of IT services from specially designated software technology parks and special economic zones in India.”

According to eWeek the settlement will go to only 600 Patni employees: "The department is committed to vigorously enforcing the H-1B provisions that guard against employers undercutting American workers by underpaying temporary foreign workers," said Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao, in a statement.

If true, then what about the other 12,400 employees? The LCA database reveals that Patni has applied for over 13,000 H-1b workers, with median wage of $45,000. That means that 6000 Patni “best and brightest, BS degreed and highly skilled” are earning less than $45,000 salary.

The real victims were the 13,000 American workers who were displaced by Patni’s unfair competition. The U.S. Congress has known for the past decade that the H-1b program is displacing U.S. workers, that the prevailing wage is a sham, and that there is no requirement to not displace qualified U.S. workers. Congress has compensated the Japanese interned during WW II. When will U.S. tech workers receive similar reparations from Congress?

When has Elaine Chao ever acted on behalf of displaced U.S. workers? In every H-1b abuse case, and reimbursement goes to the foreign workers, ignoring the collateral harm to U.S. workers.

The Programmers Guild identified Patni as #27 on the list of the lowest-paying H-1b employers. When will Chao go after the top 25?

Letter to Governor Schwarzenegger objecting to his support for an H-1b increase

2007-06-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

(Hand-delivered to Governor’s office June 6, 2007)

June 5, 2007

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger, (916-445-2841)

Among your key campaign promises was that you would represent the People of California rather than bowing to special interests.

But yesterday in your letter advocating for an increase in H-1b visas you violated that promise. I challenge you to disclose the source of that letter, which is a clear promotion of the special interests of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, foreign consulting firms, and billionaire CEOs.

1) By advocating for retention of "an employment-based application process" you are supporting the current flawed system where employers are able to hold H-1b workers as indentured servants while they sponsor the workers' green card applications. I witnessed NEC Roseville IT department specifically seek out H-1b candidates after two of their DBAs left for better opportunities at Intel Folsom. Do you support freedom or indentured servitude?

2) By advocating that the H-1b quota "must be based on the demands of the market" you are driving California workers and consulting firms out of business: The largest users of H-1b are Indian consulting firms. Last fall Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) boasted, "Our wage per employee is 20-25 percent less than US wages for a similar employee," explaining that the underpayment gave them their competitive advantage over American workers and the American firms who employ them. Do you support more H-1b for Indian consulting firms that displace Americans with $38,000 wages?

3) H-1b allows employers to hire foreigners even when qualified Americans are available. The California Department of Transportation (CALTRANS) has sponsored dozens of H-1b workers, even as U.S. Citizens were waiting and reachable on the civil service list. Do you support hiring foreign workers for state jobs when Americans are reachable on lists?

4) CEO Larry Ellison is worth $20 billion dollars. Oracle is lobbying against a $1200 annual fee on H-1b that would be used to fund scholarships of up to $15,000 so that Americans can pursue science and engineering degrees. Do you share Oracle and Compete America’s opposition to scholarships for Americans?

5) You state, "I am concerned that the current bill may make the H-1B program harder to administer." The only material change is that, under the Durbin/Grassley amendment, employers would first have advertise the position, make a good faith effort to hire Americans, and attest that no Americans were being displaced. Do you believe that Americans should be displaced from their careers because employers find it an administrative hassle to run help wanted ads and conduct interviews?

6) You cite “between 2004 and 2014 there will be nearly one million new jobs in math and computer sciences,” but ignore that more than 100,000 Americans graduate with degrees in these fields each year. Please explain why you support industry’s call for an H-1b influx that would fill every job and then some.

7) You claim that there is a shortage of tech workers in California. So can you explain why on the day you sent your letter there were ZERO classified ads for Computer Programmers in the Sacramento Bee.

I look forward to hearing an acknowledgement that you have considered these points, and hope that upon further consideration you will withdraw your letter in support of an H-1b increase.

Sincerely,
Mr. Kim Berry
Sacramento, California

UPDATE: When I attempted to deliver the letter the Governor's staff was rude. I explained that I wanted to hand it to the appropriate staff. She said "I need a name." She said that the letter had to be dropped in the mailroom. When I told her I wished to meet with staff she gave me a form to fill out, but would not let me borrow a pen to fill it out. I bummed a pen off a security worker and filled it out. She would not let me attach the letter to the hand-written form.

Senators Cantwell, Cornyn, Leahy and Hatch declare war on American tech workers

2007-05-30T22:03:00.000-07:00

Amendment #1249 to the comprehensive immigration bill, sponsored by Senators Cantwell, Cornyn, Leahy and Hatch, is a declaration of war on American tech workers. Their bill would:

Authorize employers to displace qualified U.S. workers with H-1b foreign workers
Authorize employers to sponsor H-1b workers without first recruiting qualified U.S. workers.
Allow employers to fill the bulk of U.S. tech jobs with virtual indentured servants by adding 140,000 employer-sponsored greencards each year.
Set the base H-1b quota at 150,000 per year (Incorrect)
Provide Unlimited exemptions for advanced degrees from U.S. universities PLUS unlimited advanced degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) from foreign universities

June 5th Correction: This bill does not set the H-1b quota to 150,000 per year. On May 30th details were sketchy, and I apparently confused the 150,000 that AeA is calling for with a provision in the bill.

Aside from a sham "prevailing wage" that allows employers to pay wages far below average and still be in compliance, the above points are the key H-1b reforms that U.S. tech workers have needed.

The fifth bullet point alone could potentially flood in several hundred thousand foreign workers independent from the 150,000 quota. Why would employers hire new U.S. BS grads when the market would be flooded with workers with advanced degrees, willing to work cheap in exchange for one of the 140,000 annual green card sponsorships?

Note that for U.S. grads the exemption applies to degrees in ANY major - including the proverbial "basket-weaving" - even in professions where Americans cannot find work.

There are about 3.5 million total tech jobs in the U.S., and roughly 200,000 of those become open each year, mostly due to attrition. (Bill Gates cites 2 million new jobs in the next decade - that's what he's referring to - mostly just replacement of people that move on - by choice or by displacement.)

In 2004 American colleges and universities awarded 233,492 undergraduate Science and Engineering degrees, according to Robert J. Samuelson in "A Phony Science Gap." The vast majority - perhaps 90% - of these were awarded to U.S. workers.

Clearly there are enough American graduates to fill all jobs. But these Senators intend to fill at least 150,000 (plus other exemptions) with foreign workers. Then employers will use the 140,000 green card sponsorships to create virtual indentured servants of these workers.

These Senators must be held accountable. Please phone them and your two state senators today! (Find them at www.congress.org)

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) : (202) 224-3441
Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) : (202) 224-2934
Senator Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) : (202) 224-4242
Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT) : (202) 224-5251

Apparently Compete America is behind this bill. Among the companies that Compete America represents is Motorola. Today Motorola announced that it will lay off 4000 more U.S. workers. IBM also announced a layoff of another 1500 workers today.

If there were truly a tech labor shortage, then the degreed and experienced U.S. workers included in these layoffs would be quickly picked up by other Compete America member companies. But that rarely happens.

"This amendment puts U.S. immigration control in the hands of foreign and multi-national corporations whose interests are often contrary to the best interests of the United States," warns Kim Berry, president of the Programmers Guild. "The bill literally allows citizens of other countries to petition their fellow foreigners for U.S. green cards, without regard for the impact on Americans or America."

Oracle opposes $1200 annual H-1b fee to provide $15,000 scholarships to American engineering students

2007-05-27T10:09:00.000-07:00

As reported by the New York Times on May 27, 2007:

Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, won adoption of an amendment that would increase the fee charged to employers for such a visa, known as an H-1B, to $5,000, from $1,500. The money would be used to finance scholarships for American citizens studying engineering, mathematics, computer science or health care.
Robert P. Hoffman, a vice president of Oracle, said the higher fees represented “an onerous tax increase on America’s most innovative companies.”

This “onerous” fee is less than a $1200 annual increase in the current H-1b fee ($600 foremployers with less than 25 employees). But it could substantially improve America’s competitiveness. Many American students must compromise their studies by working part time, while foreign students are free to devote 100% of their time in study groups. Others never reach their potential due to the financial realities of attending college today. So instead universities fill these slots with foreign students.

Compete America, headed by Hoffman, claims that “too few American students are seeking degrees in science, engineering and mathematics.” (Public Policy Institute of California recently made a similar claim.) But rather than support a $15,000 annual scholarship so that Americans can attend American universities, Hoffman proposes that “the H-1B and green card programs should exempt foreign-born Masters and PhD graduates of U.S. universities from arbitrary visa caps."

(The Programmers Guild refutes that there is any shortage of Americans students, citing declining salaries and tech workers over age 40 unable to find jobs. A recent Duke University study reached the same conclusion: "we did not find any indication of a shortage of engineers in the United States.")

America has made Larry Ellison one of the richest men in the world, with a net worth of $20 billion. He owns several yachts, including the 4th largest in the world valued at $200 million. He owns several aircraft, and lives in $20 million estate. (See Ellison’s home in this Google Earth Link here.)

In a May 24th press release Compete America claims: “Our companies are committed to advancing math and science education over the long term, as our future competitiveness depends on it,” but the press release bemoans that this $1200 fee “could make the H-1B program cost-prohibitive, especially for smaller businesses.”

Oracle has about 1850 H-1b on staff. Thus the annual cost to Oracle would be slightly over $2 million, providing $15,000 scholarships for 143 American students. So which is more harmful to Oracle’s global competitiveness – a nominal increase in the H-1b fee, or Ellison’s extravagant lifestyle?

As spokesman for Compete America, Hoffman also represents the opposition to these scholarships by: Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, and Sun Microsystems. All of these U.S. companies prefer to spend millions lobbying for more H-1b rather than part with $1200 to assist American students.

Oracle’s objections do not stop at the scholarship. Oracle also objects that H-1b reforms would limit their ability to displace qualified Americans with H-1b workers, and to lay off Americans while retaining H-1b workers. Hoffman says such provisions "are a huge requirement that might violate international trade laws." Industry also deems the new H-1b requirement to attest to having made a good faith effort to hire an American as overbearing.

Only a handful of companies applied for more than 500 H-1b workers in 2006. Those are predominately huge corporations for which the scholarship fee would be insignificant.

The top users of H-1b are Indian consulting firms that admit to underpaying their H-1b workers: "Our wage per employee is 20-25 per cent less than US wages for a similar employee," boasts Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) vice president Phiroz Vandrevala. The $1200 fee does not begin to offset this underpayment advantage, and the Durbin/Grassley bill would address this wage underpayment - which is currently perfectly legal under H-1b statutes.

This highlights the flaw in the current prevailing wage provision, and the Programmers Guild calls on Congress to include the prevailing wage provision of the Durbin/Grassley bill.

India now denies their prior admission that they abuse H-1b by paying way below market wages

2007-05-17T20:04:00.000-07:00

On the May 18, 2007 edition of CNN's "India 360: Indian IT troubles for US," Indian companies categorically deny that they use the H-1b to hire Indians at wages below what Americans earn:

Two American senators have alleged that Indian IT companies are displacing American workers by hiring Indians at lower wages and are misusing the H1B visas. . . Indian companies have reacted to this saying these allegations are unfounded and that there has been no abuse of H-1B visas on their part.

In this CNN video, U.S. India Business Council (USIBC) president Ron Somers states that "certainly there has been no abuse" of H-1b visas by these member companies of the India Business Council. NASSCOM also denies that any abuse is occurring.

CALLING INDIA'S BLUFF

However, according to the Hindustan Times in September 2006, a top user of H-1b within the U.S. admitted to substantially underpaying their H-1b workers, citing that underpayment as their "competitive advantage":

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) vice president Phiroz Vandrevala even admitted that his company enjoys a competitive advantage because of its extensive use of foreign workers in the United States on H-1B and L-1 visas. "Our wage per employee is 20-25 per cent less than US wages for a similar employee," Vandrevala said. "Typically, for a TCS employee with five years experience, the annual cost to the company is $60,000-70,000, while a local American employee might cost $80,000-100,000. "This (labour arbitrage) is a fact of doing work onsite. It's a fact that Indian IT companies have an advantage here and there's nothing wrong in that. The issue is that of getting workers in the US on wages far lower than the local wage rate."

According to this list compiled by InformationWeek, TCS is the 4th largest user of H-1b visas within the U.S. Most likely InfoSys, ranked number one, and Wipro, ranked number two, are also abusing the H-1b to execute similar "competitive advantage" against American workers.

Senators Durbin & Grassley question top H-1b users

2007-05-14T18:57:00.000-07:00

Senators Durbin and Grassley have sent a letter to nine H-1b users inquiring about their usage. In that AP article, Compete America counters that H-1b “abuse is the exception rather than the rule.” FULL TEXT OF DURBIN/GRASSLEY LETTER IS HERE.

Programmers Guild rebuttal to Compete “America”:

If “abuse” includes hiring H-1b without first demonstrating an attempt to recruit qualified Americans, then abuse occurs in over 99% of H-1b petitions.

If “abuse” includes paying a wage substantially below what average Americans earn in the same job classifications, then about 80% of H-1b petitions qualify as abuse, by paying Level 1, 17th percentile wages.
If “abuse” includes engaging in statistically discriminatory hiring practices based on nationality, then virtually all Indian bodyshops are abusing the H-1b program.
If “abuse” includes first hiring H-1b workers and then submitting their resumes to U.S. job openings – in direct competition with American workers – then most bodyshops are abusing the H-1b program.

Which begs the question, how does Compete America define “abuse”?

Furthermore, why is Compete AMERICA concerned with this inquiry? None of the nine entities are AMERICAN companies – most are based in India. Compete AMERICA should support this inquiry as potential unfair competition with AMERICAN firms that COMPETE for available H-1b visas.

DIRTY SECRET: Perhaps the connection is that the letter cites I-Flex, which is a majority owned subsidiary of Compete America member Oracle, and that Robert Hoffman is both Co-Chair of Compete America and Vice President for Government and Public Affairs at Oracle.

I-FLEX LCAs are here. The vast majority are for $60,000 salary, the precise salary that permits an employer to be comprised of 100% H-1b workers and still not be deemed “H-1b dependent. How is Oracle not "abusing" H-1b? I-Flex: 212-430-5800.

The Durbin/Grassley list includes several H-1b users that the Programmers Guild had previously identified as the "lowest paying H-1b users"

TATA is #5 at less than $38,000

Patni Computer Systems #27 with an average LCA wage of under $42,000
Mphasis Corporation is #64 at less than $45,000

Wipro Limited is #92 at less than $48,000

These wages are far below what average American EE/CS grads command upon graduation with ZERO experience. But Compete America claims that H-1b brings in the “best and brightest” workers with “specialized skills.” How is paying the worlds top talent below average starting wage not “abuse”?

Last month the Congressional Research Service reported how H-1b fails to protect American workers from displacement.

Still, rather than fix these flaws, many in Congress intend to expand the program.

COMPETE AMERICA CONTACT: Eric Thomas 202-822-9491
__
On the Net:
Sen. Chuck Grassley: http://grassley.senate.gov/
Sen. Dick Durbin: http://durbin.senate.gov/

John Miano's H-1b Wage Study "Bottom of the Pay Scale" - clearly the underpayment of H-1b workers is not an "exception":

Congressional Report documents that H-1b violates the U.S. worker protections of the Immigration and Nationality Act

2007-05-04T06:08:00.000-07:00

On April 27, 2007 the Congressional Research Service prepared Immigration of Foreign Workers: Labor Market Tests and Protections, which documents many of the flaws in the H-1b program. (All page numbers are the PDF page number.)

Many H-1b proponents claim that the H-1b program is more restrictive than in the past. But in fact the number of H-1b have tripled since the dot-com era of the late 1990s:

The number of visas for employment-based temporary nonimmigrants rose from just under 600,000 in FY1994 to approximately 1.2 million in FY2005. In particular, “H” visas for temporary workers tripled from 98,030 in FY1994 to 321,336 in FY2005. (Page 2) (See also Figure 2 on p.13)

The report reveals that the H-1b program violates the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA):

The labor certification ground for exclusion covers both aliens coming to live as LPRs and as temporarily-admitted aliens (i.e., nonimmigrants).The INA specifically states:
Any alien who seeks to enter the United States for the purpose of performing skilled or unskilled labor is inadmissible, unless the Secretary of Labor has determined and certified to the Secretary of State and the Attorney General that — (I) there are not sufficient workers who are able, willing, qualified ... and available at the time of application for a visa and admission to the United States...

But Table 1 on page 17 reveals that no effort to first recruit U.S. workers is required by the H-1b program. And Footnote 34 on page 14 documents that, as long as H-1b are paid at least $60,000 OR have at least a masters degree, H-1b workers can comprise 100% of an employer's workforce, yet they will not be deemed "H-1b dependent" employers.

We will continue to research details and update this blog. But in 1998 Bill HR 3273 circumvented the INA: "To treat certain information technology occupations as if the Secretary of Labor had made a determination under section (a)(5)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, to limit such determinations, and for other purposes. " (NOTE: On further review it appears that this Bill never became law. But the purpose seems unclear since there was already no requirement to recruit or attest that no qualified Americans are available.)

Java Programming positions at Accenture - over age 40 need not apply

2007-05-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

According to the CSUS Career Website, Accenture is offering a fantastic opportunity to receive four weeks of Java and Oracle training, and then, upon successful completion, placement in a permanent position utilizing those skills.

This would be a great opportunity for many under-employed programmers in their 30's and 40's, whose primary skills are in obsolete technologies, like C, Paradox, Firefox, VB6, and so on. And if there were truly a shortage of candidates, Accenture would not place artificial bars to entry. But they do:

* You must have less than 6 months of professional programming experience

The Programmers Guild does not condone blatant age discrimination, and therefore encourages everyone with experience in VB6, C++, C, or Java that would be willing to be trained in San Francisco for four weeks and then accept full-time employment with Accenture to send their resume to ats@on-campus.com

U.S. corporations are purging top American tech workers

2007-05-03T20:18:00.000-07:00

Getting hired by Intel or IBM has never been easy. Generally they select from the top talent from the top schools. But in spite of claims that employers cannot find qualified workers, according to ERE Networking, Intel and IBM are slated to purge thousands of American tech workers within the next few months.

Additional coverage of the Intel layoff is here. Intel is a member of Compete America coalition that lobbies for more H-1b workers.

Nationwide over 70,000 Americans were laid off in April 2007, a substantial jump from both the month and year prior.

Where are the desperate employers lining up to hire these workers? Why won't Congress suspend the H-1b program until these skilled American workers are re-employed?

Lies, lies, and more lies about H-1b

2007-05-03T19:48:00.000-07:00

In the past week the media has been flooded with articles containing gross misrepresentations of the H-1b program:

Misconceptions dominate the immigration debate - (Grant Sovern is an immigration attorney and partner in the Madison office of Quarles & Brady, LLP)

The most widely held misconception is that H-1B workers drive down U.S. salaries. However, in order to get an H-1B, employers must show the Department of Labor they are paying H-1B workers either the prevailing wage or the actual wage (the same as other employees at the same company). The prevailing wage is the weighted average wage for a specific position in a specific geographic area.

FACT: The "prevailing wage" for the purposes of H-1b is about the 17th percentile of what average-skilled Americans are being paid in the same job classifications. (See documentation here.)

The problem, one that apparently we all agree on, is that the U.S. is not producing enough homegrown talent in the areas of math, computer science, and engineering.

FACT: The Programmers Guild disagrees. The problem is that employers have become spoiled into demanding 5+ years experience in the precise laundry list of skills they desire, rather than hiring degreed American professionals with a wide range of skills and willingness to learn on the job. Intel and HP are purging top U.S. workers at the same time they lobby for more H-1b.

The H-1B program has other built-in safeguards. Employers who use a lot of H-1Bs first must try to find U.S. workers before they can hire an H-1B.

FACT: As long as these "best and brightest" are either paid at least $60,000 OR have an MS degree, the employer can have 100% of their staff on H-1b and never be required to recruit or consider qualified Americans. (Keep in mind the at MSc degree in India is roughly the equivalent of a BS degree in the U.S.) (Reference: PDF p.14, footnote 34)

Calendar Reform...Again

Recently imposed restrictions on H1B visas, the type foreigners need to hold a job that requires a Bachelor’s degree, have put pressure on Harvard’s international seniors. In order to enter the lottery for such a visa, seniors need documentation from University Hall asserting they hold or will soon hold their degrees.

FACT: No new restrictions have been "recently imposed."

Demand for H1B visas outstrips supply

This year, the US government had to run a computer-generated random selection process or a lottery for H1B visas since applications far exceeded the number of visas available.

FACT: USCIS had the legal right to give preference to the higher-paying positions - which presumably represented the most experienced or specialized workers. But USCIS chose to hold a random lottery.

Everyone will benefit with immigration reform, part #3

The H-1B visa quota for high skilled immigrants is filled early every year. Companies then have to out-source their work, or worse, not be able to start new projects or do research and development. Some of these jobs don’t require college degrees, but they do require bright young people who are educated in high school math and science and can be trained in the high tech jobs.

AGE DISCRIMINATION: Why do companies only require "bright YOUNG people"? Most Congressmen, Judges, and CEOs are over age 40. If people over age 40 can run this country, they should still be qualified to work in the IT field.

U.S. Universities, Research Parks Hit Hard by Government Cap on H-1B Visas

RESTON, Va., May 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The current U.S. cap on the number of skilled-worker visas (H-1B) severely handicaps the ability of U.S. universities, science and technology-related companies and research facilities in their ongoing missions to develop new technologies, medicines and other innovative products that put the country on the leading edge of the global economy, according to the Association of University Research Parks (AURP).

FACT: Universities and non-profit research centers are exempt from the H-1b cap, and there are still available slots for foreign graduates of U.S. colleges with a masters degree or higher.

Skilled Masses - Washington Post Editorial

Congress temporarily raised the ceiling to 195,000 for fiscal 2001 through 2003,
only to let it relapse out of neglect.

FACT: The cap did not lapse "out of neglect." The total number of IT jobs in the U.S. declined between 2001 and 2003. Combined with a record number of H-1b flooding in, in November 2003 DOL's Bureau of Labor Statistics personnel acknowledged that upwards of 20% of U.S. computer programmers were either unemployed or had been displaced from the profession, and that actual unemployment could have exceeded 30%!

Hershey highway leads to Mexico

2007-04-30T22:33:00.000-07:00

Providing further evidence that offshoring is driven by lower wages rather than a shortage of labor in the U.S., Hershey plans to lay off 600 Americans at the company's only West Coast facility in Oakdale California, and transfer the manufacturing of Kisses, Reese's, Mounds, Almond Joy and such to a new facility in Monterrey Mexico.

Chief Operating Officer David J. West claims that "Oakdale manufacturing will transfer to the new Monterrey plant. If the 40 year old Oakdale plant was only running at 40% capacity, why did Hershey invest in a new plant in the first place?

These 600 Americans can blame the NAFTA "giant sucking sound" that Ross Perot warned of for their plight, but can take comfort that, globalists assure us, the net result of shipping jobs to Mexico is the creation of even more and better jobs in the U.S. But only the $2/hour jobs driving Mexican trucks of candy back into the U.S. comes to mind.

Kiss your job goodbye, as Hersey retains free access to the U.S. market which skirting U.S. labor standards.

The Gutierrez-Flake STRIVE Act would open U.S. tech jobs to unlimited applicants from any country in the world

2007-04-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

Congressmen Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) (202) 225-8203 and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) (202) 225-2635 incorporate parts of the SKIL Act into their comprehensive immigration reform STRIVE Act. Among the provisions of their Act would be to exempt from the H-1b cap anyone in any country with a master’s and higher degree in science, technology, engineering and math - obtained at any school anywhere in the world.

We are attempting to determine how many tech workers meet that criteria, but it could exceed one million. Many "masters degrees" from India are MCA degrees, and "most MCA recipients receive an education equivalent to a bachelor’s degree in computer science."

Employers running basic classified ads will be swamped with thousands of applications from immigration agencies, bodyshops, and individuals seeking visa sponsorship. Many will be willing to forgo benefits and 40 hour workweeks for the opportunity to become U.S. citizens.

It's no exaggeration that this one Congressional Act could destroy the careers of hundreds of thousands of highly skilled Americans, and disuade the next generation of Americans from entering tech professions. (See James McMurtry perform "We can't make it here.")

First Congress tore down trade barriers, allowing America's best jobs to transfer overseas. Now they am to flood in foreign workers to fill the remaining good jobs, in a U.S. economy increasingly based on McJobs and Servants.

Employers opposed to advertising positions and recruiting Americans before sponsoring H-1b workers to fill U.S. jobs

2007-04-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) introduced the “H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud Prevention Abuse Prevention Act of 2007.” (S.1035) According to a bulletin by immigration attorney Greg Siskind, employers object to the time and expense of offering jobs to Americans:

"The chief objection to this usually relates to the details of the recruiting requirement and how this would significantly slow the process for bringing in a worker that may be needed immediately. Employers would have to advertise a position for 30 days before they could seek an H-1B approval."

H-1b proponents also object that the Durbin-Grassley bill would stem H-1b bodyshops. "This is seen as potentially very disruptive to the information technology sector..." writes Siskind. Rather than being hired for a specific job, H-1b bodyshops first secure H-1b workers, then they agressively apply for external job openings. Legally U.S. employers cannot give preference to Americans - even when several American applicants are clearly qualified for the job: If just one of the 100 H-1b resumes from H-1b bodyshops is "more qualified," by law, the employer must hire the H-1b, or be subject to a claim of "discrimination based on immigration status or national origin" - thus drumming up more business for AILA lawyers.

Currently the DOL and USCIS know of 130,000 U.S. job openings that will not be filled until October 2007. But these agencies will not disclose these jobs to U.S. workers. Instead they conspire against Americans by reserving these jobs for H-1b workers. The Durin-Grassley bill would require that DOL make post the job openings represented by H-1b applications on their website for 30 days, giving Americans the opportunity to inquire about the positions.

Both AILA and H-1b employers are aware that qualified Americans are being displaced by H-1b workers. And their opposition to the basic protections in the Durbin-Grassley reveal their true motive of keeping it that way.

This "we don't have the time to hire American workers" posture goes far beyond any legitimate claim of a labor shortage. Congress should act in the interests of American workers and co-sponsor the Durbin-Grassley protections.

Immigration attorney alleges that many of the 130,000 H-1b applications were duplicates

2007-04-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

In his blog "IS THIS CHEATING?" AILA member Gregory Siskind warns of "many companies sending in multiple H-1B applications for the same employees." Siskind speculates that the reason employers filed multiple applications is to improve the odds that at least one of the applications would be selected in the lottery. "The sole goal is to increase one's odds at the expense of others," writes Siskind.

USCIS could have avoided this lottery sham by giving preference to the higher-paid applications. But USCIS stated that they deem hotel clerks equally qualified as genetic researchers. USCIS has already completed their lottery, gambling away another 65,000 U.S. jobs, in spite of qualified Americans available to fill them.

UCLA lobbying against their own American students

2007-04-18T06:51:00.000-07:00

As reported in the 4/18/2007 Daily Bruin, UCLA is lobbying to increase the H-1b cap. The article fails to reveal the substantial harm that the increase will have on UCLA's predominately American students, both immediately upon graduation and throughout their careers as they try to compete for jobs in a job market where employers can select from resumes arriving from the poorest countries on earth. (India and China alone have seven times the population of the U.S.)

The article fails to reveal that the reason H-1b cap is being reached is not because of foreign graduates from U.S. schools, but rather due to the flood of graduates of foreign universites. Unlike UCLA graduates, these graduates do not have huge student loans and thus can accept lower pay, driving down all wages.

The article closes with this gem by Bernard Wolfsdorf, national second vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which lobbies for more H-1b to increase their $100 million industry of processing these visas:

“The fact of the matter is immigrants don’t take jobs, they create jobs.”

This is false. Some employers claim that up to 90% of the applications they receive are from H-1b or people seeking H-1b sponsorship. Under the law of averages, a substantial number of Americans are not getting jobs they apply for due to the H-1b visa - which contains no requirement to first recruit American workers.

H-1b master plan: move 40 million high-skill American jobs to other countries

2007-04-17T06:42:00.000-07:00

In her commentary New threat to skilled U.S. workers, Froma Harrop explains how the H-1b visa is facilitating the transfer of up to 40 million high-skill American jobs to other countries. "Princeton economist Alan Blinder predicts that these choice jobs could be lost in a mere decade or two." She gives Ron Hira more than the sound bite that H-1b opponents are typically allocated. She closes by accurately implying that Kennedy and McCain are liars.

Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina’s position on shipping millions of U.S. jobs overseas is clear - as she was laying off thousands of American workers - and exemplifies the vision of many U.S. CEOs:

"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore," Fiorina commented in a recent speech in Washington. Not the most sensitive comment to make in light of the number of unemployed Americans suffering these days. This Marie Antoinette-inspired remark makes me wonder if HP hasn't already offshored its public relations department.

"We're trying to move everything we can offshore." - HP Services chief Ann Livermore ... HP figures a good high-end programmer in India costs about $20,000 a year, about a quarter the U.S. cost. And things could get even cheaper. "We see China gaining on India about three or four years from now."

Please read the commentary here:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003668844_harrop17.html

World's top Universities are not in India or China

2007-04-15T21:45:00.000-07:00

Newsweek ranked global universities on several factors. Their "Complete List: The Top 100 Global Universities" reveals that the top schools are disporportionately in the United States: Eight are in California. In contrast, none appear to be in India or Mainland China.

Furthermore, "Where the Engineers Are" published by the National Academy of Sciences found that "there are serious deficiencies in engineering graduates from Indian and Chinese schools." Their research revealed that many "masters degrees" from India (comprising a disproportionate number of H-1b) are really MCA degrees. And "Most MCA recipients receive an education equivalent to a bachelor’s degree in computer science."

Contrary to claims by corporations and other proponents of increasing the H-1b cap, companies are not offshoring to chase the top talent: "Our research shows that companies are not moving abroad because of a deficiency in U.S. education or the quality of U.S. workers. Rather, they are doing what gives them economic and competitive advantage."

The study also refutes that there is a shortage of engineering graduates in the U.S.:

"Graduating more engineers just because India and China graduate more than the United States does is likely to create unemployment and erode engineering salaries. One of the biggest challenges for the engineering profession today is that engineers’ salaries are not competitive with those of other highly trained professionals: It makes more financial sense for a top engineering student to become an investment banker than an engineer. "

Rather than flooding in more H-1b, Congress should examine why engineering salaries are failing to keep pace with other professions. One factor might be the H-1b program itself, which Congress has capped salaries at $60,000 for several years as the limit which an employer who hires exclusively H-1b workers is not deemed "H-1b Dependent."

Raising H-1b cap will accelerate loss of U.S. jobs and technology to India

2007-04-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

Reporting from Mumbai India, Anand Giridharadas' article "Outsourcers corner market for U.S. skilled worker visas" (International Herald Tribune, April 12, 3007) explains how the H-1b visa is "now a critical tool for Indian outsourcing vendors to gain expertise and win contracts from Western companies to transfer critical operations to places like Bangalore."

"It has become the outsourcing visa," the Indian commerce minister, Kamal Nath, said by telephone this week while attending global trade talks in New Delhi, at which India is pushing the United States for a larger H-1B quota.

"If at one point you had X amount of outsourcing," he said, "and now you have a much higher quantum of outsourcing, you need that many more visas."

Last year eight of the 10 largest H-1B applicants were outsourcing firms with major operations in India. U.S. SEC filings reveal that Infosys alone had 6,800 U.S. employees on H-1Bs as of September 2006. In 1998, the figure was 231.

Tata Consultancy Services sent Atul Pevekar to Minnesota on an H-1B. His assignment: to work with a U.S. retailer to relay its information technology needs back to TCS's Indian staff, to which the retailer has outsourced scores of jobs. "I am a link between the people who are doing coding in India and the client."

Losing jobs and technology to India is not in the best interests of the U.S. or of U.S. citizens. Congress needs to suspend the H-1b program now.

Senator Chuck Hagel assaults U.S. tech workers with (S.1092) “The High-Tech Worker Relief Act of 2007”

2007-04-15T08:33:00.000-07:00

U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate Chuck Hagel (R-NE) (202) 224-4224 [I spoke with Jennifer 4/18 9:30am EDT - she could not explain why it should be legal for an employer to discard the resumes of 100 qualified Americans and instead sponsor an H-1b] has introduced “The High-Tech Worker Relief Act of 2007.” This legislation will increase the number of H-1B high-tech industry visas from 65,000 to 195,000, with exemptions that would make it virtually unlimited. His bill contains no protections for American workers from displacement. According to Hagel:

“The severe shortage of H-1B visas is a nation-wide problem, and Nebraska is directly affected. The demand in Nebraska for these highly qualified individuals in fields such as health care and computer science far out number the supply. This legislation is important to helping keep America competitive in the 21st Century workplace.”

The article perpetuates an H-1b myth by writing: "Many industries use H-1B workers to fill jobs when American workers can’t be found."

This is false. Aside from no requirement to first recruit American workers before hiring an H-1b, the study "American Made" found at page 24 that in the majority of cases employers do not hire H-1b to fill a shortage shortage of skilled U.S. workers, but rather because they simply desire to hire a specific foreign worker. This could be an Indian immigrant preferring to have other Indians on the team, or a desire to hire family members or former associates from the home country. (Many companies founded by Indians are comprised almost exclusively of Indians - "Americans Need Not Apply.")

The article then lists H-1b visa users in Nebraska. I've added a hyperlink to their LCAs

Union Pacific (Union Pacific Railroad) or (Union Pacific Corporation) (About 20 H-1b over a 5 year period. These are large corporations so a few H-1b per year should not be a significant factor either way.)

Streck Labs (5 researchers, 4 earning under $40,000)

First Data (2 VP H-1b earning $170k. 66 total H-1b, median around $60k. Their website lists several open IT jobs)

Valmont (Only 5 H-1b over a 4 year period - they are unable to hire one American per year? Median pay $48k)

Terracon (here) and (here) (52 H-1b over a 5 year period, but only 2 of the H-1b are in Nebraska)

Western Electric (No LCAs found)

DTL Industries (No LCAs found - unable to find alternate company name via Google)

NIC USA, Inc. (30 LCAs for software jobs paying around $70k, but all are in Kansas)

Omaha Public Schools (here) and (here) and (here) (40 school teachers over 5 years earning about $35k)

Lexington Public Schools

Great Plains Regional Medical Center (4 physicians over a 3 year period, earning - holy cow - $250,000. They have about 70 physicians in the directory, so one H-1b per year is not going to make or break this facility.)

Mary Lanning Hospital (21 H-1b over 5 years, half are technologists and therapists earning under $20/hour)

The vast majority of employers in Nebraska get along fine without any H-1b workers, and with a bit more recruiting the above employers could fill every position with American workers. These examples do not support raising the cap but rather that Congress should suspend this "U.S. Worker Replacement Program."

America already has a President bend on destroying the American middleclass. Sorry, we don't need another one.

Yappy-headed Yoh Index reveals dramatic underpayment of H-1b workers

2007-04-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

As reported by the SF Chronicle and InformationWeek, Yoh conducted a survey of technology wages, finding that "highly-skilled technology professionals are making more money than ever." The survey claims very high average wages for typical IT jobs:

NET Developer $53.40
Database Administrator $59.80
ETL Developer $66.52
Hardware Engineer $75.68
Java Developer $57.27
SAP® Functional Consultant $76.67
Technical Consultant $83.72

These are the types of skills that employers are filling with H-1b workers, and these figures suggest a median salary well into six figures. But the average pay for H-1b workers performing these jobs is roughly half of these rates. See the figure in this article, for example.

If such jobs exist, where are they? Not at Yoh Consulting. A search of their openings reveals that Yoh pays substantially below what they claim is an "average wage":

.NET Developer: $60,000 to $75,000 per year
ETL Developer: $55,000 to $57,000 per year

Furthermore Yoh pays its own H-1b workers around $50,000 for most positions.

Proposal: In order to protect the wages of U.S. workers, USCIS should only approve those H-1b applications that pay at least the average wages of the Yoh study. Under that basic wage protection it's unlikely that more than 1% of the pending 133,000 applications would be approved.

News Flash: Corporate executives and lawyers are big fat liars: H-1b can be hired even when qualified American workers are available

2007-04-14T06:03:00.000-07:00

According to the New York Times article "Lottery Used to Narrow Work Visa Petitions" (By JULIA PRESTON April 14, 2007):

"Corporate executives and lawyers said that employers seeking visas for immigrants must demonstrate to the Department of Labor that no American workers are available."

UPDATE: On April 18th the New York Times ran a correction stating "Employers do not have to show that no American workers were available for the job. "

This myth was also repeated by the Los Angeles Business Journal in "Hire Anxiety" (By BOOYEON LEE April 16, 2007) :

"The H-1B visa program allows companies to employ highly skilled engineers,scientists and computer programmers with expertise that cannot be found in the American workforce."

On March 2nd the LA Times made the same error. The Programmers Guild pointed out their error. And on March 18th the LA Times published this correction:

FOR THE RECORD:
Visa fraud: A story in the March 2 California section about two attorneys charged with visa fraud said that to obtain an H-1B visa for a foreign worker, a company must prove it cannot find a qualified U.S. employee to fill the specific job. There is no such requirement, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. —

Among that Guild's core objections to the H-1b is that it has allowed "corporate executives and immigration lawyers" to legally displace 500,000 highly skilled U.S. workers from their professions with foreign workers that are paid $10,000 to $25,000 below the average pay of U.S. workers in the same job classifications.

US DOL's Strategic Plan on page 35 states:

H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker.

Vaguely attributing a false claim to "corporate executives and lawyers" does not excuse the publication of false statements. Both of these major publications should publish a timely correction, and embed the correction within the web version of the article, as the LA Times did.

USCIS deems hotel clerk and PhD Genetic Researcher as "equally qualified"

2007-04-11T06:54:00.000-07:00

Even after the H-1b applications for U.S. grads with masters degrees are processed under the separate 20,000 quota, there are 119,193 other H-1b applications for 65,000 slots. Historically these requests will range from hotel clerks and accountants earning less than $16 per hour, to genetic researchers earning over $100,000.

In the Wednesday April 11, 2007 article Most H-1B seekers lack grad degrees in SF Chronicle, staff writer Tom Abate covered our suggestion that "immigration officials should hand out the remaining visas based on salary -- a proxy for skill -- rather than by chance. "

(NOTE: This article was later retracted due to the technical error that many of the H-1b within the 65,000 quota hold masters degrees from foreign universities. But the points raised in this blog are independent from that issue.)

Immigration spokeswoman Sharon Rummery said that by law the remaining visas must be issued on a first-come, first-served basis. "As far as we're concerned, they're all equally qualified," she said.

Rummery's position is illogical and as far as we know not mandated by any statute: A "lottery" is not "first-come, first served," and arguably a genetic researcher is more qualified than a hotel clerk.

NO NEED TO RAISE H-1B LIMIT

More importantly, this Chronicle article reveals that we have not come close to reaching the cap on U.S. grads with advanced degrees.

H-1b proponents like Compete America and ITAA argue ad infinitum that we need more H-1b because 50% of graduates with advanced degrees (MS or higher) are foreign students, and we should not be rejecting these "best and brightest." They argue this because they know at the BS level the vast majority of U.S. Engineering and Computer Science graduates are Americans.

So watch ITAA pedal backwards:

"Jeff Lande, spokesman for the Information Technology Association of America, argued that the crush of applications makes the case for a higher H-1B quota. Reacting to Berry's comment about the number of applicants with bachelors degrees, Lande said critical skills vary from job to job, adding that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates didn't finish college but would certainly qualify as one of the world's "best and brightest.""

If finishing college is not a proxy for skill, then why does Microsoft require at least a BS degree for every position? Why do so many positions require an MS degree?

All this proves is that Bill Gates would have no chance of getting hired by Microsoft through the HR bureaucracy intended to filter out the thousands of applicants for each position.

Programmers Guild supports the Durbin/Grassley "H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act of 2007"

2007-04-08T18:10:00.000-07:00

S.1035 by Durbin and Grassley would add some basic protections for U.S. workers to the H-1b guestworker program. The bill is here.

The bill makes the "recruitment of U.S. workers provision" apply to all H-1b employers. Currently only the 1% of "H-1b-dependent" employers must first recruit U.S. workers. The statutory provisions of this recruitment are here.

Unfortunately the bill still permits the displacement of qualified U.S. workers with H-1b - see the last paragraph of the link above: "The employer is required to have offered the job to any U.S. worker who applies and is equally or better qualified for the job than the H-1B nonimmigrant." The problem is that "better qualified" is highly subjective: Who is "more qualified" - a candidate with a BS degree and 3 year's experience, or a candidate with an MS degree and 1 year experience? An employer could argue this either why, when in fact both candidates are "qualified." This should be fixed - and H-1b should only be hired when no qualified Americans are available and need the job.

This bill bars the "displacement of U.S. workers." Currently it is legal for employers to use the H-1b visa to displace qualified American workers. The statutory provisions of this non-displacement are here.

The bill calls for a prevailing wage based on the average wage of U.S. workers in the same classification, as opposed to the 17th percentile if the current "prevailing wage."

The bill calls for jobs to be advertised on the DOL website for 30 days. While this is an improvement over the current disclosure several months after the fact, in our opinion it falls short. We call for:

1) Jobs publicly posted on DOL website for 30 days
2) Candidate publicly apply with summary resumes during those 30 days. (much like posting feedback to an article - no "new technology" required)
3) After 30 days, if employer still plans to hire the H-1b, employer posts a public statement explaining why none of the U.S. worker applicants were suitable.
4) U.S. candidates given 15 days to post objections.
5) This exchange remains public record and can serve as evidence for civil and criminal cases.

Even the current "must demonstrate that no qualified U.S. workers are available" in order to get a greencard under PERM rules has degenerated into a sham of:

1) Employer runs a few fake job ads
2) Employer internally ignores all qualified applicants
3) Employer files copies of the fake job ads as evidence of "good faith" recruiting, when it is just the opposite.

Information and examples of these PERM fake job ads is here www.programmersguild.org/RIR/

Finally the bill authorizes the hiring of 200 DOL personnel to effect these protections. This cost of roughly $10 to $20 million should be borne as fees to users of the H-1b program rather than supported by taxpayers.

Fiscal Year 2006 H-1b LCA Data available from DOL

2007-04-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

You can download the FY 2006 LCA data as an Access database from the DOL website here. For LCA searches, a more convenient option is to search at H1b.info: http://beta.h1b.info/lca_search.php

If prior years are an indication, DOL will not release the FY 2007 until after the jobs are filled with H-1b workers in October 2007. We would not want any Americans taking these jobs that the U.S. Goverment has reserved for foreign workers.

"Silly Americans, U.S. tech jobs are for Indians."

H-1b proponent RTKL Associates pays their H-1b architects $32,000 salaries

2007-04-08T10:26:00.000-07:00

In the March 29, 2007 article "Tech worker visa scramble begins," Debra Fiori, director of human resources for RTKL Associates, a Baltimore-based architecture firm alleged that "There's a shortage of U.S. workers in architecture and engineering" and explained how RTKL was preparing to beat the H-1b filing deadline for several H-1b applications.

What RTKL failed to disclose is that, according to Department of Labor LCA records, RTKL pays their H-1b architects a wage as low as $32,000. (While some are Intern positions, most are not, and only three about 100 H-1b positions pay more than $60,000 salary.)

Furthermore, in spite of RTKL’s claim of a labor shortage – and no access to H-1b workers for several months – their website lists only a handful of open positions in each major city.

H-1b Proponents claim that the program has substantial wage protections for U.S. workers. But DOL approved these $32,000 architect positions.

Indian companies invest millions to train Indian workers - Why don't U.S. companies do the same?

2007-04-08T09:47:00.000-07:00

This April 7, 2007 AP article "Back to class at Infosys" reveals how India is handling its shortage of tech workers: Rather than lobbying the Indian goverment for programs that would flood in foreign workers, the employers are spending a fortune to train their domestic workers.

Infosys, for example, spent $350 million on a 500,000-square-foot education complex campus, and will spend $140 million in 2007 alone.

While H-1b proponents allege that H-1b workers from India are the "best and brightest," this article reveals that most are poorly trained: "Indian schools churn out 400,000 new engineers every year, but as few as 100,000 are actually ready to join the job world, experts say."

We face a similar situation in the U.S. where tens of thousands of tech workers with proven records and at least BS degrees cannot find work. Microsoft and other employers summarily reject these applicants as "not a good match" because, for example, they have 5 years of experience in C++ rather than C# - or as subtle age discrimination.

The United States made Bill Gates the richest man in the world. It's time to give back. Rather than abusing your weath to lobby for "unlimited H-1b visas," why not spearhead a similar training complex for U.S. workers?

During the 1990s many U.S. tech companies viewed their workers as long-term investments and provided training to keep their skills current. But the H-1b program turned U.S. tech workers into short-term commodities. And until the flood of H-1b is stemmed, displaced U.S. workers cannot reenter the workforce by simply retraining themselves since employers require at least 1 to 5 years of verifiable on the job experience in specific technologies.

SOLUTION

Congress should suspend the H-1b program until U.S. corporations show the same good faith investment in U.S. workers that Indian companies are giving their workers.

UPDATE: This July 31, 2006 article Infy hires in US, trains in India details how InfoSys runs a six month intensive training program that takes even liberal arts majors and within six months places them on software projects in the U.S. Why can't Microsoft, Google, and Oracle do the same?

USCIS should use wage to determine which H-1bs to grant

2007-04-06T06:33:00.000-07:00

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has received 133,000 H-1b applications for 65,000 slots. According to this San Francisco Chronicle Article "Feds planning lottery to hand out H-1B visas":

"'In a few weeks we'll select the applications through a computer-generated random system. Since all applicants are well qualified, that's the only fair thing to do,' said Sharon Rummery, regional manager for the citizenship office in San Francisco."

The Programmers Guild disagrees that a "random lottery" is "the only fair thing to do." Many of these H-1b will be used by Indian bodyshops that grossly underpay their employees. We advocate instead that the applications that pay the highest wage should be given priority. The H-1b program is allegedly intended to bring in the "best and brightest" - which presumably are being paid the higher wages.

The USCIS should not arbitrarily discard a top candidate earning $100k in favor of a marginal bodyshop programmer earning $40k.

(Information Week reported this proposal on April 9th: As The H-1B Visa Cap Filled In Record Time, Reform Is In The Air.)

Programmers Guild on Lou Dobbs April 5, 2007

2007-04-06T06:15:00.000-07:00

Lou Dobbs and his correspondent Bill Tucker can see through the corporate smokescreen of how the H-1b is being used to undermine U.S. software professionals - as part of corporate war on middleclass Americans. On April 5th the Programmers Guild gave their perspective on why the H-1b cap was reached in one day.

CLICK HERE to view the video clip and read the transcript of the segment.

Software Development Jobs at Microsoft

2007-03-13T06:06:00.000-07:00

Bill Gates told the U.S. Senate that he needs more H-1b visas to fill the thousands of open positions at Microsoft. A search for "software development" openings returns 690 matches, but reveals interesting data:

22 of the 690 positions were posted today (March 13, 2007)

Most of the positions were posted after January 20, 2007.

Since it can take several weeks to screen resumes, fly in candidates for interviews, make and accept offers, this reveals that Microsoft is filling the bulk of its positions in a timely manner. Since no H-1b visas are currently available, Gates must be finding sufficiently talented U.S. workers - and this in spite of minimal recruitment efforts, such as not recruiting at any of the 22 CSU campuses in California.

A search for "development" jobs at just one site in India returned 118 positions, which means in proportion to total number of positions, Microsoft is having more trouble filling jobs in India than in the U.S. Yet you won't see him lobbying India to admit an unlimited number of engineers from China.

REQUEST: Displaced and underemployed U.S. workers with BS degrees and several years of experience - please apply for some of these positions and advise us of the results.

Programmers Guild Rebuttal To Bill Gates Senate Testimony

2007-03-11T17:34:00.000-07:00

Bill Gates’ testimony was published by ComputerWorld. Our analysis follows.

PAGE 3

GATES: Another area where America is falling behind is in math and science education. We cannot possibly sustain an economy founded on technology pre-eminence without a citizenry educated in core technology disciplines such as mathematics, computer science, engineering and the physical sciences. The economy's need for workers trained in these fields is massive and growing. The U.S. Department of Labor has projected that, in the decade ending in 2014, there will be over 2 million job openings in the United States in these fields. Yet in 2004, just 11% of all higher education degrees awarded in the U.S. were in engineering, mathematics and the physical sciences -- a decline of about a third since 1960.

PG ANALYSIS: DOL long-term projections have notoriously been flawed, failing to consider the impacts of offshoring, etc. Gates’ “yet” is a non sequitur – the percentage of degrees that are engineering provides zero level of proof that any of these “job openings” will remain unfilled. On the contrary, in 2004 American colleges and universities awarded a record 233,492 undergraduate Science and Engineering degrees - more than enough to fill 2 million slots over a decade, writes Robert J. Samuelson in "A Phony Science Gap" in the Washington Post. (During questioning Bill Gates suggested that 300,000 H-1b per year would be a "good start" for an H-1b quota. But this would supply 3 million H-1b workers plus 2 million American workers to fill 2 million slots over the next decade - Does Gates plan to make Soylent Green out of the surplus 3 million U.S. engineers?)

GATES: To expand enrollment in post-secondary math and science programs, we should provide 25,000 new four-year, competitive undergraduate scholarships each year to U.S. citizens attending U.S. institutions and fund 5,000 new graduate fellowships each year. America's young people must come to see STEM degrees as opening a window to opportunity.

PG ANALYSIS: And what should be the source of these funds? The Programmers Guild presents a similar proposal based on solid economics: Increase the H-1b visa fee to $5000 per year, which would provide $20,000 per year to up to 125,000 U.S. citizens studying undergraduate engineering and computer science.

GATES: Over the next several years, six out of every 10 new jobs will be in professional and service-related occupations. Given the state of our educational system, it is not surprising that U.S. companies are reporting serious shortages of skilled workers. According to a 2005 U.S. Department of Education study, only 13% of American adults are proficient in the knowledge and skills needed to search, comprehend and use information, or to perform computational tasks. This yawning gap between America's economic needs and the skills of its workforce indicates that as a nation we are not doing nearly enough to equip and continuously improve the capabilities of American workers.

PG ANALYSIS: Why does Gates lump “professional” and “service” together? What if 95% of those new jobs are low-skill service jobs, while very few “professional jobs” are created? The DOE 13% finding seems absurd on its face, since – unlike Bill Gates - approximately 27% of Americans age 25 or older have a college degree. The Senate panel should have asked Gates how 50% of Americans got through college without those skills. While there is room for improvement in education, a key factor in the decline in American education was to overcrowd classrooms with a flood of non-English speaking students – in part engineered by Senator Kennedy in the 1960s.

PAGE 4

GATES: As a nation, our goal should be to ensure that, by 2010, every job seeker, every displaced worker and every individual in the U.S. workforce has access to the education and training they need to succeed in the knowledge economy. This means embracing the concept of "lifelong learning" as part of the normal career path of American workers, so that they can use new technologies and meet new challenges. Neither industry nor government can achieve these goals if we act alone. Federal, state and local governments must help to prepare all of our workers for the jobs required in a knowledge economy. Workforce enhancement should be treated as a matter of national competitive survival. It is a down payment on our future, an extremely vital step to secure American competitiveness for future generations and to honor the American ideal that every single one of us deserves the opportunity to participate in America's success.

PG ANALYSIS: Into the 1990s many companies, such as Hewlett-Packard, considered their employees “lifetime investments” and would provide training opportunities to keep them current. The floodgate of H-1b workers reduced Americans to replaceable commodities. The first step to assuring a lifetime career path for Americans would be to abolish, not expand, the H-1b program.

PAGE 4 ON H-1B

GATES: I personally witness the ill effects of these policies on an almost daily basis at Microsoft. Under the current system, the number of H-1B visas available runs out faster and faster each year. The current base cap of 65,000 is arbitrarily set and bears no relation to U.S. industry's demand for skilled professionals. For fiscal year 2007, the supply did not last even eight weeks into the filing period, and ran out more than four months before that fiscal year even began.

PG ANALYSIS: Bill Gates has a narrow view of reality. Microsoft only accepts about 1% of job applicants, and indeed, EVERY computer programmer that Gates encounters at Microsoft has a job – he has no contact with programmers, with many years of experience and degrees up to PhD that are returning to school to learn nursing since they cannot find a job. Gates fails to cite the root cause why H-1b visas are being used up: They allow employers to sponsor H-1b in spite available qualified Americans, and pay these H-1b workers at the 17th percentile of prevailing wage.

GATES: For fiscal year 2008, H-1Bs are expected to run out next month, the first month that it is possible to apply for them. This means that no new H-1B visas -- often the only visa category available to recruit critically needed professional workers -- will be available for a nearly 18-month period. Moreover, this year, for the first time in the history of the program, the supply will run out before the year's graduating students get their degrees. This means that U.S. employers will not be able to get H-1B visas for an entire crop of U.S. graduates. We are essentially asking top talent to leave the U.S.

PG ANALYSIS: There is more than one solution: The Programmers Guild proposes that the best way to assure adequate H-1b for top talent is to stop giving them to bottom talent (or even to average talent).

GATES: As with H-1B visas, the demand for green cards far exceeds the supply. Today, only 140,000 permanent employment-based visas are available each year, which must cover both key employees and their family members. There is a massive backlog in many of the employment-based green card categories, and wait times routinely reach five years. Ironically, waiting periods are even longer for nationals of India and China -- the very countries that are key recruiting grounds for the professionals desperately needed in many innovative fields.

PG ANALYSIS: If DOL complied with the law and only issued green card in cases where “there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified and available” pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1182(5)(A) Labor certification. Far less than 140,000 would be issued. The DOL has instituted the PERM program that uses sham job ads to make this determination.

Additionally the top three users of H-1b in the U.S. are foreign corporations run by foreigners. Since the average American has no power to grant citizenship to foreigners, why are we granting our foreign competition the power to determine who becomes U.S. citizens?

GATES: In the past, we have succeeded in attracting the world's best and brightest to study and work in the United States, and we can and must do it again. We must move beyond the debate about numbers, quotas and caps. Rather, I urge Congress to ask, "How do we create a system that supports and sustains the innovation that drives American growth, economic opportunity and prosperity?" Congress can answer that question by acting immediately in two significant ways.

PG ANALYSIS: What year “in the past” is Gates referring to? During the dot-com boom of the 1990s we were admitting fewer H-1b workers annually than we do today.

GATES: First, we need to encourage the best students from abroad to enroll in our colleges and universities, and to remain in the United States when their studies are completed. Today, we take exactly the opposite approach. Foreign students who apply for a student visa to the United States today must prove that they do not intend to remain here once they receive their degrees. This makes no sense. If we are going to invest in educating foreign students -- which we should and must continue to do -- why drive them away just when this investment starts to pay off for the American economy?

PG ANALYSIS: What criteria would be used to determine who are “top students” from abroad? If any of the nearly three billion people in India or China could be assured of U.S. citizenship by simply enrolling in and completing an engineering or computer science program at a U.S. university, U.S. students would be squeezed out of these programs by literally millions of applicants. Many programs, such as UC San Diego, are already impacted. Then who is going to hire these graduates? Microsoft does not recruit at any of the 22 CSU campuses in California, for example.

GATES: Barring high-skilled immigrants from entry to the U.S., and forcing the ones that are here to leave because they cannot obtain a visa, ultimately forces U.S. employers to shift development work and other critical projects offshore. This can also force U.S. companies to fill related management, design and business positions with foreign workers, thereby causing further lost U.S. job opportunities even in areas where America is strong, allowing other countries to "bootstrap" themselves into these areas, and further weakening our global competitive strength. If we can retain these research projects in the United States, by contrast, we can stimulate domestic job and economic growth. In short, where innovation and innovators go, jobs are soon to follow.

PG ANALYSIS: Gates lost us on his point about how filling U.S. "management, design and business positions with foreign workers" will cause further U.S. job losses, but filling software jobs with foreign workers stimulates U.S. job growth.

Furthermore, the H-1b program is providing the conduit to offshoring, as reported by Business Week. Microsoft is using the H-1b in the same way, as reported in East Side Journal explained on October 10, 2002:

The road to Microsoft's future travels through the ancient lands of India. That future is a $10 billion initiative called Microsoft .NET ... Key pieces of the new system have and will come from India… Microsoft's offices at [Hyderabad's] Hi-Tec City not only recreate the look but also the feel of Microsoft's headquarters. In an e-mail from Hyderabad, Srini Koppolu, the IDC's general manager, said each programmer is free to take an idea to top managers at any time -- an open-door policy not common at Indian companies. ``The replication of Microsoft's culture has been possible because many people who worked in Redmond for many years have moved back to be part of the India Development Center,'' Koppolu wrote.

GATES: Second, Congress should expedite the path to permanent resident status for highly skilled workers. The reality for Microsoft and many other U.S. employers is that the H-1B visa program is temporary only in the sense that it is the visa we use while working assiduously to make our H-1B hires -- whether educated in the U.S. or abroad -- permanent U.S. residents. Rather than pretend that we want these highly skilled, well-trained innovators to remain for only a temporary period, we should accept and indeed embrace the fact that we want them to become permanent U.S. residents so that they can drive innovation and economic growth alongside America's native born talent.

PG ANALYSIS: Gates talks about "U.S. employers," but the top three H-1b users are Indian consulting firms that directly compete against U.S. firms, and gain market share by transferring these jobs and technologies back to India. These firms blantly discriminate against American workers and have no allegiance to the U.S. Gates advocates that we allow foreigners be given the power to petition each other for U.S. citizenship. The Programmers Guild disagrees that this is good national policy.

GATES: These reforms do not pit U.S. workers against those foreign born. They do not seek to make or perpetuate distinctions among the best and brightest on the basis of national origin. They simply recognize the fact that America's need for highly skilled workers has never been greater, and that broad-based prosperity in America depends on having enough such workers to satisfy our demand. Far from displacing U.S. workers, highly skilled, foreign-born workers will continue to function as they always have: as net job creators.

PG ANALYSIS: On this point Gates is clearly wrong. Americans are harmed each week when they apply to the PERM fake job ads and are denied the position in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1182(5)(A), They are harmed when a contract is given to an Indian consulting company and thus are laid off from their U.S. consulting company.

CONCLUSION

Bill Gates lacks sufficient understanding of the H-1b program and why U.S. workers are outraged by it. During questioning he said "there should be no limits on jobs that pay over $100,000 a year." Gates ignored that only about one percent of H-1b workers earn $100,000 per year, while many masses earn around $40,000 per year.

If Gates does not believe that H-1b is displaying U.S. workers, then would he champion legislation to prohibit such displacement? The U.S. Department of Labor Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2006 - 2011, Under Performance Goal 2H, "Address worker shortages through the Foreign Labor Certification Program", states:

"H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker."

Bill Gates Slated to Ask Congress for More H-1b Workers

2007-03-03T19:42:00.000-08:00

Bill Gates will plea for an H-1B increase before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee at a public hearing slated for 9:30 a.m. EST on Wednesday morning, March 7, 2007. We don't know whether an advocate on behalf of the U.S. workers who would be harmed will be given equal time.

Gates will claim that H-1b workers are paid the “Prevailing Wage.” To the extent that this means "parity with what U.S. workers earn in the same jobs, this is false. DOL defines four levels of “prevailing wage,” and LEVEL ONE is about the 17th percentile of the average wage of U.S. workers within the job classification – over 80% of H-1b are at LEVEL ONE. DOL approves H-1b programmers to work in Silicon Valley for $40,000 per year - hardly a "prevailing wage" - and hardly an indication that these workers are the "best and brightest."

Gates will claim that there is a shortage of U.S. tech workers. This is false. Open a daily newspaper in a major metro area and note only a handful of computer programmer / software engineer job ads. (Also be aware that up to 50% of the ads are fake – they are run by employers to “prove that no Americans are available” to apply for greencards for their H-1B workers. The employers discard the applications of qualified Americans. There are 500,000 H-1b workers currently in the U.S. – most would like to become citizens. (See the fake ads that run each week in Sacramento Bee.)

According to analysis by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in Q3 2006 American Software Engineers, Computer Scientists and Systems Analysts have lost jobs this year over last year - a net loss of 93,000.

Microsoft is not making a good faith effort to hire Americans: They do not recruit at ANY of the 22 CSU campuses in California. There is an Engineering Job Fair at CSUS next week. Microsoft is not participating.

There is no shortage of Americans entering this profession: In many schools, like UC San Diego, the programs are impacted and thus turning away qualified U.S. students.

Key propaganda in support of H-1B increase originates from the special interest group “American Immigration Lawyers Association” (AILA) to protect and expand their $100 million industry of processing corporate immigration documents. In fact the hearing for Bill Gates is being coordinated by former directing attorney of the American Immigration Lawyers Association Pro Bono Project, and illegal immigration proponent Esther Olavarria, who is now General Counsel and primary immigration advisor to Senator Edward M. Kennedy - Ranking Member, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration.

Gates will imply that the H-1b is only being used when no Americans are available. This is false, and is a key deficiency of the visa: It allows employers to sponsor and hire foreign workers EVEN WHEN THE EMPLOYER HAS AS STACK OF RESUMES FROM QUALIFIED AMERICANS WHO NEED THE WORK. Most H-1b have only average skills and work at average jobs - for below average pay. Why is Congress subjecting Americans to this? Displaced Americans have no legal recourse BECAUSE CONGRESS MAKES IT LEGAL!

Finally, the H-1b is having an unintended negative effect on the U.S. economy: Seven of the top ten H-1 users are not U.S. companies, but rather are Indian outsourcing firms which utilize the H-1b program to bring in Indian workers to train them before transferring these jobs and technologies back to India. This is a critical loss of U.S. infrastructure that Congress should stem rather than expand.

SOLUTION

Rather than increasing the cap, Congressman Pascrell (NJ) has H.R. 4378, the “Defend the American Dream Act of 2005” that would add U.S. worker protections. With these protections in place, the current cap of 85,000 would never be reached, and Microsoft and others would have plenty of visas for those rare cases when no Americans are available.

The Programmers Guild advocates for a $5000 annual fee on H-1b, to provide up to $20,000 annually for tuition and expenses for Americans studying Engineering and Computer science.

Oppose the Kennedy/McCain/Bush Comprehensive Immigration Reform

2007-03-03T14:00:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO - March 3, 2007 - The pending comprehensive reforms allow 12 million illegal workers to retain their jobs with no requirement that their employers first try to fill the jobs with U.S. workers. Typically illegals are paid below market wages, giving an unfair advantage against employers who have complied with the law.

This is amnesty for the illegal aliens: They are granted a U.S. job and path to citizenship based solely upon their illegal entry to our country. This makes a sham of the 1986 “one time only” amnesty.

This is amnesty for employers of illegal aliens: These employers, such as landscape, roofing, drywall, restaurants, manufacturing, have gained market share by blatantly violating the federal employment verification statutes. They have driven down wages for all Americans in these professions. Now, with no penalty, they will be able to retain these cheaper workers.

These reforms create a guest worker program in a wide range of professions for which there is no shortage of U.S. workers. I do not oppose a strictly control guest worker program for migrant farm labor. But, as proposed, these guest worker programs would allow recent immigrants to use the program to bring in their friends and family as “employees” at the exclusion of Americans. All they would have to do is check a box “I could not find any Americans” and run a bogus classified ad – ignoring all applicants.

This undermines our free market labor supply/demand where the employer would have to increase wages to attract applicants. (In nearly every case there is not a shortage of workers, only a shortage of workers willing to accept the wages and terms offered.) The U.S. Government should not be in the business of undermining the natural market forces that retain our middle-class standard of living.

President Bush calls for a guest worker program "to match willing employers with willing foreign workers to fill jobs that Americans have not taken." What does that mean? Isn't every job in the classified section a job that, at the moment "Americans have not taken?" Might a job be "not taken" because it was never advertised or pays below market wages?

We already have this program with the H-1B and PERM Greencard guest worker program. Disproportionately Indians arrive, secure a software contract, then use the H-1B program to start bodyshops to bring in friends – or to sell U.S. citizenship for $10,000 under the table kickbacks. Rarely are such crimes prosecuted since both parties benefit. (This news article about the ASK Law Firm reveals the problems associated with allowing the private sector to manage who is admitted to the country – this is the tip of the iceberg of current abuse that would only increase under a massive guestworker program.)

California, like many other areas, already has too many people:

"Caltrans officials say they are in near-crisis mode: Freeways statewide are at their carrying capacity" ["Caltrans, city in traffic battle" (Sacramento Bee 2/16/2007 - Tony Bizjak)]

Prime croplands are being replaced with subdivisions.

Prisons are overcrowded.

Congress cannot assure that sufficient oil will be available for current Americans over the next few decades.

Legalizing 12 million illegal immigrants will substantially increase our population: Chain-migration occurs when an immigrant becomes a citizen. Citizens have a legal right to bring in family members other than spouses and children. They can bring in their parents, their adult siblings and the spouses and children of their adult siblings. What is the result?

WASHINGTON — Monday, May 15, 2006 -- U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) today unveiled an impact analysis that shows the Senate immigration bill – should it become law – would permit up to 217.1 million new 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.

Amnesty is not in the U.S. economic interest:

The plan would flood in cheap labor that, not only would not pay federal income tax, but would often be entitled to the earned income credit.
Recent immigrants send over $56 billion back to their home countries each year. Over $15 billion bleeds to Mexico, $25 billion to South America and $16 billion to Asia. (Frosty Woodbridge “America's Death by a Thousand Cuts” March 2007)
The massive population increase would increase demand for imported oil and consumer goods, further exasperating our energy dependency and trade deficit with China.

Proponents of the comprehensive approach claim that it is not feasible to “round up and deport 12 million people.” I agree. But granting the citizenship and thus the ability to petition tens of millions of theirl their relatives – regardless of job skills or displacement of U.S. workers – is not a solution.

Furthermore the comprehensive plan does not stop illegal immigration. So in 20 years we’d have to grant another amnesty. If we don’t draw a line this will never end.

The comprehensive approach permit birthright citizenship anchor-baby to continue. Women from as far a China are making tourist trips to the U.S. to drop an anchorbaby, assuring themselves of a path the U.S. citizenship in the future.

Congress has considered changing the Constitution for trivial matters like flag-burning (I don’t recall the last time a flag was burned, nor that it was ever a “problem.”) So why do they lack the will to end this anchor-baby sham? The 14th Amendment pertained to granting citizenship to slaves, not to the children of visitor that hold citizenship in other countries.

SOLUTION

First enact enforcement provisions, including tamper-resistant worker identification, and require all U.S. workers to re-verify their status – under penalty of jail for the employer, worker, and agent processing the application. Some sort of biometric measure is needed, such as thumbprint. Without work most illegals will return home without enforcement and legal appeals. (If the “comprehensive solution” does not include such provisions, it should not be called “comprehensive.”)