H-1B Visas Cost American Jobs

EagleForum.org ^ | May 7, 2003 | Phyllis Schlafly

[old-ager]

H-1B Visas Cost American Jobs

May 7, 2003 by: Phyllis Schlafly

Republicans in Congress will soon have the opportunity to prove whether they do the bidding of their corporate contributors or side with their hardworking voters. The corporations are lobbying to extend the Clinton Administration law that raised the number of H-1B visas to 195,000 a year, which otherwise is scheduled to expire on September 30 and revert to the 1999 level of 65,000.

H-1B visas allow corporations to displace Americans with cheap skilled labor imported from foreign countries. H-1B visas are good for three years and can be extended for another three years, and nobody has any count of how many H-1B aliens remain indefinitely, legally or illegally.

Some observers estimate that there are about 890,000 H-1B aliens now working in the United States. The Immigration and Naturalization Service said that the official count of H-1B aliens is less than half of those actually in the United States because the count excludes those who were previously approved and had their stay extended and also excludes the H-1B aliens working for educational institutions and nonprofits.

It's a fiction that the United States suffers a shortage of skilled labor, and most H-1B aliens fill entry-level jobs. By far the most H-1Bs are issued to people from India, with the second largest number coming from China.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment among American electronic engineers has soared to 7 percent, and among computer hardware engineers to 6.5 percent, both surpassing the national jobless rate of 5.8 percent. According to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), electrical and electronic engineers lost 241,000 jobs in the past two years, and computer scientists and systems analysts lost 175,000 jobs.

IEEE president John Steadman says he has "never heard" of such high unemployment, and that the wide-open importation of H-1B aliens has substantially contributed to the hardship of U.S. engineers and computer scientists. The result, he adds, is "a very substantial and negative effect on the economic conditions of the United States."

Corporations continue importing H-1B aliens at the same time they lay off U.S. citizens. With hundreds of thousands of unemployed American engineers, why should corporations receive special privileges to import even more foreign workers?

Corporations love H-1B aliens not only because they work longer hours for lower wages, but also because it is more difficult for them to change jobs. This system is an affront to free enterprise because the regulations confine the foreigners to their sponsoring corporations like indentured servants.

Government officials don't check for violations of H-1B regulations or determine if there really is an actual shortage of U.S. skilled workers.

The national media treat H-1B as a non-issue, but local newspapers across the country are full of reports about how American workers are laid off and replaced with foreign workers. The San Jose Mercury News found scores of complaints filed at attorneys' offices, the EEOC, and the Departments of Justice and Labor.

A Dallas database administrator said, "One recruiter flatly told me they have 50 H-1Bs willing to work cheap ahead of me in line." Another U.S. citizen who filed a complaint with the EEOC alleged that SwitchOn Networks fired him after six months and replaced him with an H-1B alien with less education and less experience, paying him $30,000 a year less.

Bob Simoni, who has an MBA from UCLA, thought he had a good job with Toshiba installing software, but all of a sudden Toshiba outsourced his division to an India-based company, Infosys, which employs H-1Bs in the United States. Simoni was allowed to stay for three weeks to do "knowledge transfer," a euphemism for training an H- 1B alien to replace him.

Computer science expert Dr. Norman Matloff provided ample proof to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, that H-1B aliens depress wages for all workers. He cited a UCLA study that H-1B engineers were paid 33 percent less than comparable Americans, a Cornell study that found wages 20-30 percent less, and a Forbes Magazine report that H-1B wages are 25-30 percent less.

This is not free-market economics. It is collusion between corporations that pour big money into politics to pass legislation that replaces American workers with foreign substitutes. The law keeps wages artificially low for the benefit of corporate profits.

Another device used by employers to bring in alien workers is the L-1 visa. L-1s are intended to enable multinationals to transfer executives, managers and employees with specialized skills from a foreign office to a U.S. location or affiliate, but they have fewer stipulations and are easy to abuse.

Mike Emmons told how his former employer, Siemens ICN, used L-1 visas to replace 20 American computer techies with aliens from India. "Management mandated we train our foreign replacements, then Americans were shown the door. It was the most demoralizing thing I have ever experienced."

Tell your Congressman that importing hundreds of thousands of alien workers at a time of unemployment and economic recession is absurd and is an insult to Americans.

[old-ager]

"The corporations are lobbying to extend the Clinton Administration law that raised the number of H-1B visas to 195,000 a year, which otherwise is scheduled to expire on September 30 and revert to the 1999 level of 65,000. "

[jagrmeister]

My message to Schafly: Buzz off. Quit bashing corporations when it suits your agenda, and then lavishing praise on them when it doesn't. America benefits from H-1B workers and it keeps us competitive in the tech sector. Either do something constructive like increase the number of math/science majors in American colleges or shut it. If anything we need to orient more of our immigration away from family-based immigration to skill-based immigration (ie: H1-B).

[Black Agnes]

ping.

[hedgetrimmer]

There are companies in the Silicon Valley that will ONLY hire chinese, or ONLY hire indians for tech positions. How does increasing the math and science majors in our colleges change that?

[SwordofTruth]

America benefits from H-1B workers and it keeps us competitive in the tech sector.

You do not know what you are talking about. Do some research before you speak next time to avoid making yourself look like a fool again.

[grb]

Tell me how it helps the thousands of unemployed american tech workers

[Afronaut]

Yea screw the Americans. Bring in a slave and put that fat stupid American out in the street. <---

[TopDog2]

Why would anyone in their right mind major in math/science or any technical field when the odds are that they will either not be able to find a job or will quicly lose whatever job they are able to find due to the many H-1B workers working for wages that won't even allow the US workef to repay his student loans.

The only benefit from the H-1B program is an increase in short-term profits for the companies that employ those workers. In the long-term, America suffers from higher unemployment and a lack of native citizens to do this crucial work.

[InABunkerUnderSF]

I’ll compete with anyone in the world. If you can outsource the job to somewhere else and are willing to manage the remote workforce, fine. I can deal with that.

But when the government allows companies to import their own cheap labor for the purpose if displacing American workers I draw the line. You say that’s not what they are doing? If there is a labor shortage in the high tech. sector, why does Silicon Valley have an 8% unemployment rate?

Why should people in school now study for a technical degree when they graduate with tens of thousands in student loans and have to compete H1Bs and worse yet, L1s? At least with H1Bs they had to fire you before they could replace you. With L1s you get to train your Indian replacement before you’re laid off.

If there are competitiveness issues they are because of management’s inability to manage, not because of American workers unwillingness or inability to work or adapt to new technologies or new methods.

In the ‘70s we crippled our manufacturing infrastructure with environmental regulations and managerial ineptitude. Now we are eliminating our knowledge workers. The economy is becoming a house of cards. America doesn’t really do anything anymore except make movies and file lawsuits.

[Sherri]

As if H-1B isn't bad enough lets not over look the L-Visa

The L Visa: Big Business’s New Loophole for Displacing American Workers
On the heels of a growing outcry over the problem of businesses harming the labor market for American workers by bringing in temporary foreign workers on H visas (particularly H-1B visas), a related problem is emerging.

Lesser known, but of growing importance, is the importation of foreign workers via the L1 visa program for “intracompany transferees.” The L1 visa allows multinational companies to transfer employees from a foreign corporation to a U.S. branch, parent, subsidiary, or affiliated entity. L1 visa workers can work for up to seven years in the U.S.

L1 visas are faster and easier to get than H visas. Also, the L1 visa program doesn’t include the H-1B program’s attempted safeguards against American workers’ job displacement and wage depression-and, unlike the H-1B program, it contains no numerical ceiling.

How It Works
To bring in employees on the L1 visa program, a U.S.-based company first outsources its jobs to an offshore company. That offshore company then transfers employees to its U.S. offices to do the job for the original company (usually for lower pay). Then, because the original company is now outsourcing more work, it can downsize and get rid of American employees. L1 visa workers can work for up to seven years in the U.S.

At some large information technology (IT) companies with U.S. offices, use of the L1 visa now outstrips use of the H-1B visa to bring in temporary foreign workers.1 In some reported cases, American workers are even made to train their foreign replacements before being laid off.2

Siemens Techonologies laid off Patricia Fluno and 11 colleagues in their Lake Mary, Florida, office and replaced them with IT workers from Tata Consultancy.3 The worker to whom Fluno’s work was relegated sits at her old desk, answers her old phone number, and earns a third of what she did. This would be a violation of the law if the replacement were an H-1B, but because it is an L1 visa worker, nothing can be done. As a Siemens spokesperson explained, “They don’t work for us. They work for Tata.”

On the Rise
The L visa program has existed since 1970, but visas issued under the program have increased significantly in recent years. The number of foreign workers being brought in to the U.S. on L1 visas has doubled since 1996. In fact, in 2001 (the latest year for which figures are available), there were almost as many temporary workers admitted under the L1 visa program (328,480) as under the better-known H-1B program (384,191). An additional 144,911 L1 visas were given to the spouses and dependents of L1 visa temporary workers.

Sidestepping Protections for Americans
The L1 visa is being touted to IT companies as the way to get around the protections built in to the H-1B program. One visa and immigration consultant says, “With the jump in IT unemployment, fewer US companies can tap the H-1B program these days since it’s conditional to showing that qualified Americans aren’t available. At the same time, employers looking to slash costs have discovered that they can use firms that hire L-1s to dump high-paid Americans in favor of cheaper workers from abroad.”4

A major immigration law firm has called the program “a quite useful tool to by-pass the cumbersome steps of obtaining a labor certification.”5

Even setting aside the effect on American workers, using the L visa program to bring over programmers violates the intent of the program. The L visa was designed for middle and higher management personnel. The enacting provision of law states that L visa holders are only supposed to do work that is “managerial, executive, or involves specialized knowledge[.]”6 According to the law, specialized knowledge means “special knowledge of the company product and its applications in international markets or has an advanced level of knowledge of processes and procedures of the company.”7 That doesn’t apply to the substitute programmers being brought over en masse to replace Americans and the program is being stretched abusively and beyond recognition.

Congress must recognize the growing abuse of L visas and add to the program protections for American workers against losing their jobs and wages to temporary foreign workers.

[Digger]

Republicans in Congress will soon have the opportunity to prove whether they do the bidding of their corporate contributors or side with their hardworking voters.

and the winner is CORPORATE....with the sheeple voting them back in at re-election time.

[InABunkerUnderSF]

Yep, we'll vote them back in. Look at the alternative...

[vanmorrison]

The Saudi Arabian monsters who perpetrated the 911 atrocities were foreign engineers who received legal visas, ostensibly to fill open positions in our technical markets. As a nation, for the security of our own people, we have got to stop rationalizing the admittance of the many millions of aliens, legal or illegal, into this country. I would speculate that whatever business benefits the corporate community touts to continue their relentless search for cheap labor has already been offset by the blood and treasure we've lost in terrorist attacks and the resultant Wars we've been forced to prosecute to mitigate them.

[1066AD]

Abuse is right. The L-1 was, IIRC, set up to allow multinationals to bring in people from their overseas offices for training, solve crises etc, similarly US folk went foreign. I saw this in action in 70s & 80s, no problems. However it appears, like everything else, that the lawyers have found a way to pervert it on behalf of their corporate clients.
As regards H-1B, I'd say cancel the program, now. Plenty of US techies & specialists available.

[NormsRevenge]

Computer science expert Dr. Norman Matloff provided ample proof to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, that H-1B aliens depress wages for all workers. He cited a UCLA study that H-1B engineers were paid 33 percent less than comparable Americans, a Cornell study that found wages 20-30 percent less, and a Forbes Magazine report that H-1B wages are 25-30 percent less.

This is not free-market economics. It is collusion between corporations that pour big money into politics to pass legislation that replaces American workers with foreign substitutes. The law keeps wages artificially low for the benefit of corporate profits.

Half the eBusiness group workers of a software company (about 20 folks when I started and 40 or so when I left) were Indian and Chinese and here on H-1B visas. They worked long hours and did great work. When reductions in the group were made, all of them stayed. The US folks took all the hits and were told it was to meet business needs and consolidate operations (ie., work sent to other locations where cheaper labor rates prevailed).

It was bunk, but what can you do?

That's Life in SiliConJob Valley and many other areas as well these days. It has less to do with skills or needs, and more with the bottom line. I know we shouldn't be bitter, we should just move on, but when you see collusion or whatever as described here, it makes you wonder why Americans don't come first anymore in America.

[jagrmeister]

Thank you for your "educated" opinion. Yes, I was a "fool" for pointing out how drawing from a wider talent pool, including the geniuses that graduate from India's IIT universities, improve's America's performance in the tech sector. Yes, what do I know, I only see it first-hand every-day living in Silicon Valley. There is a temporary shortage of jobs in Silicon Valley (engineering faring much better than many other professions such as marketing) but that is expected during the down-turn and when the economy picks up, we will see this economic engine again creating more jobs than can be filled. I remember being responsible for hires during the boom and there were so many jobs that the combination of native engineers and H1-B's barely met demand. The current cries for protectionist immigration policies will subside when economic growth returns.

[jagrmeister]

Silicon Valley is as close to a meritocracy as it comes. Companies hire 16 year old whiz kids, 40 year old women, people from all countries- age, gender, race don't matter- what matters is your ability. Especially with engineering- where good engineers do not suffer fools. I live in the Valley and don't know a company that ONLY hires Chinese or Indians. More math/science majors here means we won't be dependent for foreign graduates (although may still opt to tap into the foreign talent base).

[jagrmeister]

Economy Down -> Every worker (including engineers) have a tough time finding jobs -> Economy rebounds -> Native trained engineers won't be enough to handle increase in job openings. The tech sector is volatile and will heat up again. When it does, we will need all the talent we can get.

[jagrmeister]

Yeah, there you go. Now you're sounding like a bona fide liberal. Go Unions!

[jagrmeister]

In order to address the concerns that you and a number of other posters have on this subject, I did some research on the number of engineering positions and the % held by foreign-born people. 2 observations: First, there are millions of engineering jobs. Second, a relatively small % are held by foreign-born people. Clearly, this is not a case where employers are turning down every native-born engineer for a foreign-born engineer.

---
The following is a list of total number of people working in the following occupations, and the percentage of non-native born people working in the professions:

total scientists and engineers (3,186,000; 15 percent),
computer scientists (641,000; 12 percent),
mathematical scientists (87,000; 16 percent),
life scientists (305,000; 16 percent),
chemical and physical scientists (274,000; 17 percent),
social scientists (318,000; 9 percent), and
engineers (1,560,000; 17 percent).
--