Silicon Valley prepares to push House toward immigration reform

The Hill ^ | Sunday June 30, 2013

[Bigtigermike]

The tech industry scored two major victories on immigration this week, but its toughest legislative battle on the issue lies ahead in the House

The passage of the Senate’s immigration bill is the closest the tech industry has come in recent years to its primary goals of raising the H-1B visa cap and securing more green cards for highly skilled foreign workers. But tech companies, like other stakeholders pushing for immigration reform, are only at the 50-yard line.

“We want to see the process move forward and this week it did, in a big way,” said Andy Halataei, director of government relations at the Information Technology Industry Council. “We have to keep pushing. How and when and exactly what's going to happen, I don't think anyone knows.”

“I think from our perspective, failure is not really an option,” said Peter Muller, director of government relations at Intel. “We've been waiting so long to address these issues.

“We’ve seen it can be achieved in the Senate. How it can be achieved in the House is uncertain, but if it can't get done now, it's never going to get done,” Muller added.

[Bigtigermike]

Glenn Renyolds said: . I was talking a few weeks ago to a friend who chairs an IEEE chapter in Silicon Valley. He says they bring over Chinese coders, pay them $500/month and put them in corporate apartments with a van that goes back and forth to the office, then send them back to China after a year. But they donate to Democrats, so there’s not much press scrutiny.

[null and void]

Because they hire every available American engineer, and they need to import more.

How about we tie the H-1B program to the unemployment rate?

As long as more than 8% of the American STEM workers are unemployed, the H-1B quota is zero.

It doesn’t get to the full 180,000 unless fewer than 4% of the American STEM workers are unemployed.

[ransacked]

Not a bad idea. But I’m sick of the Amercian workers being screwed! We don’t have a voice!

[null and void]

Oh, and we need to expand the ObamaCare umbrella to cover foreign workers, they need have a mandatory program that, given the possibility of exotic diseases and the lack of early tax contributions, starts with an up-front fee of, say $12,000 payable by the employer, due the day they start work, non-refundable if they leave of any reason, ever. Plus an annual fee twice what an American citizen pays, also covered by the employer.

These are minor fees if the employee truly has vital skills that simply can’t be found in any American worker.

[pierrem15]

All the firms that are doing this are committing massive fraud on their H1B visa applications-- they should all be jailed.

If they threaten to move operations overseas if H1B's are cut-off, then the government should threaten to seize their IP using eminent domain and impose an 'America only' licensing restriction on development.

More criminals associated with the Democratic party, otherwise known as the world's largest criminal conspiracy (along with their RINO assistants, of course).

[indthkr]

"Silicon Valley prepares to push House toward immigration reform"

This is partially related to maintaining the vastly over inflated real estate and land values in the Bay Area, as well as feed the state via tax receipts.

In addition, the state of California has regulated and priced itself out of existance as far as a location to live and do business, and the only way to make up some of the difference is to bring in compliant indentured servants from out of the country - an approach that the left always rationalizes as a means to "save them" from their previous existance.

[shanover]

Is the big stinky elephant in the room the fact that our educational system can’t even produce moderately skilled workers and we have a segment of society that is lazy.Millions of Americans are sitting on their collective arses sucking on the Obama EBT teet.

[dalereed]

Silicon valley can go straight to hell!!

Maybe they should just move to China!

[LaRueLaDue]

He says they bring over Chinese coders, pay them $500/month and put them in corporate apartments with a van that goes back and forth to the office, then send them back to China after a year.

No wonder commercial software is crap... If they cannot make money using US workers, perhaps their business model needs a bit of tweaking.... Just saying...

[LaRueLaDue]

Is the big stinky elephant in the room the fact that our educational system can’t even produce moderately skilled workers and we have a segment of society that is lazy.Millions of Americans are sitting on their collective arses sucking on the Obama EBT teet.

Perhaps... What I have seen is that kids nowaday just aren't taught anything useful, and they expect a great job with great perks for essentially nothing up front: unproven "job skills." They can actually learn, and most are eager to learn and be useful, but they need serious OJT. But there are a plethora of skilled older workers that can get things done. Just have to be willing to look at them and not expect them to work for entry-level wages.

Most of the "skilled" foreign workers that I have had contact with are not highly skilled at what they advertise: they are highly skilled in lying on a resume and in the interview. I once previewed/interviewed 11 Indian workers for some off-shore work (that had to be done off-shore, contractually) and even though their resumes looked good, once you actually talked with them and tested their knowledge, they didn't actually know anything. But (and this is a big but) the corporate HR people couldn't spot the inconsistancies and lies in the interview. They actually thought I was causing trouble by pointing out that the people interviewing for the positions couldn't do the work...skilled