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Sudhir Kapoor, 25, got the call from his employer late last year. It was bad news: The economic downturn meant the technology company had to let him go. Laxmi Aiyar, who is returning to India after she was laid off by her company, says, "It is Indian talents who made America rich and prosperous. Now, they are throwing us out like a can of Pepsi." Since nearly 40 percent of all H-1B visa holders are from India , the mounting layoffs are hitting Indian professionals particularly hard. ....Lives have been disrupted, and some said they were under tremendous stress to...

U.S. IT providers continue to push jobs offshore, while Indian firms work to refine the amount of work they complete overseas. Although Congress may force the Indian firms to hire more Americans -- and Indian companies have been telling investors that they may have to indeed do that -- the change won't likely affect the overall trend and the shift in jobs outside the U.S. Okay, so where are U.S. jobs going? What's the data show? Data prepared by Everest Group Inc., a research and outsourcing consulting firm, shows in broad brush fashion the shift of jobs overseas by some...

Once the most sought after H-1B American work visa is still having nearly 20,000 slots open seven weeks after the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) started receiving applications for the financial year 2010 beginning October this year. The USCIS on Tuesday said it has so far received approximately 45,500 H-1B petitions counting toward the Congressionally-mandated 65,000 cap. As such, the USCIS would continue to accept petitions subject to till the cap is reached. This is in contrast of the previous few years when the USCIS had to resort to computerized draw of lots as it received petitions outnumbering several...

Asserting that "handcuffing" employers from hiring talented workers will hurt the US economy, two experts have criticised proposals to limit hiring of holders of H-1B visas coveted by Indian technocrats as "misguided." "In order to grow the American economy and support the American workforce, Congress should expand and improve the H-1B visa programme," said James Sherk and Diem Nguyen. As adding regulations to the H-1B programme would be a serious setback to US visa policy and would only end up hurting the US economy, the Congress should instead raise the cap from the current 65,000 to the 2001 quota of...

WASHINGTON - Congress should enact "badly needed" immigration reforms to bring in both unskilled and skilled foreign workers if it wants to maintain the nation's economic vitality, former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan said Thursday. Greenspan called for both a temporary worker program for low-skilled jobs and for an increase in visas for highly skilled workers...in testimony at the first Senate hearing this year on the prospects of an immigration overhaul. Noting the "very large participation" of undocumented workers in both low- and high-skilled jobs, he said, "if you were to remove either of those groups, the economy would be...

"There are no U.S. immigration restrictions on people working outside the U.S., so anyone who wants to can have folks work in London versus New York," says Allen Erenbaum, a lawyer specializing in immigration issues at Mayer Brown LLP in Los Angeles. Under the federal economic-stimulus package signed by President Obama in February, companies that receive TARP funds face additional hurdles before they can hire skilled foreign workers who need temporary work permits known as H-1B visas. Firms that have received government money must prove they have tried to recruit American workers for those jobs and that the foreigners aren't...

.......the Obama Admin said it's getting ready to tackle immigration......whether to allow in up to 85,000 foreign technical workers under the H1-B visa program when hundreds of thousands of American engineers and programmers are losing jobs. H1-B visas shouldn't be eliminated, as some protectionists suggest, but shouldn't be made unlimited, as industry leaders like Microsoft's Bill Gates once requested of Congress. The idea behind H1-B visas is that companies sometimes need to hire foreign techs when there are no qualified US citizens to do a job. In practice, however, the program has been used to lower overall labor costs....as a...

In between establishing new national policies on healthcare, education, financial regulation and energy, the Obama Administration said last week that it is getting ready to tackle immigration, too. Part of this involves deciding whether to allow up to 85,000 foreign technical workers to enter the country under the H1-B visa program at a time when hundreds of thousands of American engineers and programmers are losing their jobs. H1-B visas shouldn't be eliminated, as some protectionists suggest, but they also shouldn't be made unlimited, as industry leaders like Microsoft's Bill Gates once requested of Congress. The H1-B program is useful, but...

[Skilled labor] is a category whose significance has been growing since the 1920s, when politicians and business executives started recognizing the value of skilled immigrants. After World War II, companies began actively recruiting scientists, among them Nobel Prize winners, from around the world. The emphasis on skilled labor was codified in the Hart-Celler Immigrant Act of 1965, which said that for 20 percent of immigration spots, candidates with certain skills would get preference to stay indefinitely, though that 20 percent also included the family members of those skilled immigrants. (At the time, 74 percent of visas were given to people...

One of the dirty little secrets of the offshoring/outsourcing fiasco in I.T. is the onshoring of workers through the use of third parties.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on April 8 it has received enough H-1B applications to meet the congressionally mandated cap of 85,000 H-1B visas for fiscal year 2009. The H-1B visas are given to foreign workers in “specialty occupations” (science, engineering, law, medicine, computer programming, etc.) where U.S. employers have filed petitions claiming there are not qualified U.S. applicants to fill the jobs. The total current 85,000 includes an annual 65,000 “cap” and an additional 20,000 exemptions for applicants with advanced degrees. If precedent holds, other exemptions will add tens of thousands more; in 2008 the number...

Stuart Anderson, a lobbyist for the National Foundation for American Policy, has been playing fast and lose with the numbers by saying that each H-1B holder that hi-tech companies hire creates five jobs around that position. If so, why don't we raise the cap, import about 200,000 guest workers, and create a million new jobs? Because the idea that H-1Bs create jobs is absurd.

H1-B lobbyist / apologist on C-SPAN (Washington Journal) right now. Has not been asked any really difficult questions.

IT services provider Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. has agreed to pay $509,607 in back wages to 67 H-1B workers after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor. Teaneck, N.J.-based Cognizant is one of the largest H-1B users, having received approval for 467 visas during the federal government's current fiscal year. That put Cognizant, which has more than 60,000 employees worldwide, in seventh place on the list of H-1B recipients for fiscal 2008. The Labor Department, in a statement released this week, said that the company had violated federal law by failing to pay "proper wages" to H-1B tech workers....

....As the U.S. economy slows, highly skilled foreign professionals seeking work under various visa programs are finding it harder to get jobs. President Obama's stimulus package stops U.S. companies...that take federal bailout money from hiring H-1B visa holders for two years if they have laid off American workers in the previous six months...The H-1B program brings in about 85,000 skilled foreign workers every year, ostensibly to fill jobs that U.S. workers cannot or will not do. But some companies...are rescinding job offers. Analysts say it is part of a wave of mounting anger in the United States over work visas.......

MUMBAI -- With his master's degree in electrical engineering at North Carolina State University almost complete, Ravi, 24, received a promising job offer from a technology firm. He called his parents back in India, happy that he was on track for an H-1B work visa, which is seen as a steppingstone to U.S. citizenship. But just before Thanksgiving, Ravi got a call from his future employer. "They told me that because of the economic downturn they couldn't hire me in anticipation of tougher times ahead. They were laying off other American employees, and cutting my job would be a proactive...

WASHINGTON: In the first-ever indication of its stand on H-1B visas popular among Indian professionals, the Obama administration has informed a court that the US needs this scheme to avoid "competitive disadvantage" the American companies could face otherwise. A submission in this regard was recently filed by Michael F Hertz, acting assistant attorney general, in response to a lawsuit filed by a group of three US bodies, nine individuals and two students challenging government's decision to extend from one year to 29 months the duration of foreign nationals with engineering, science and other technical degrees who can work in the...

WASHINGTON -- At a time when high-tech corporations like Microsoft, Cisco and IBM are laying off American workers by the thousands, some of those very same companies will begin applying for the right to hire foreign workers on April. The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers -- the IT arm of the Communications Workers of America -- has expressed outrage that the Homeland Security Department is once expected to issue 65,000 visas, known as H-1Bs, that allow American firms to hire foreign workers each year. "In this brutal economic climate, American workers should get first dibs at the jobs out there,"...

As the debate over H-1B workers and skilled immigrants intensifies, we are losing sight of one important fact: The U.S. is no longer the only land of opportunity. If we don't want the immigrants who have fueled our innovation and economic growth, they now have options elsewhere. Immigrants are returning home in greater numbers. And new research shows they are returning to enjoy a better quality of life, better career prospects, and the comfort of being close to family and friends

It's protectionism, say Indian critics, that Congress has banned companies receiving bailout money from hiring foreigners on H-1B visas With the economies in the U.S. and India both struggling and with unemployment rising,the outsourcing of American jobs to Indian workers has become an even more explosive issue. That's leading business leaders,politicians,and ordinary citizens in both countries to focus on a controversial visa program,the H-1B, that allows a limited number of foreigners to work at U.S. companies for up to six years. Critics have long claimed the program allows high-paying software-writing and engineering jobs at companies and state governments to go...

Can you stimulate the economy by shutting out foreign workers? Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Grassley think so. And for all his anti-protectionist rhetoric, President Obama has shown surprisingly little interest in stopping them. The stimulus bill the president signed into law restricts the use of bank bailout funds (money banks get from the Financial Stability Plan, formerly known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program) to hire skilled foreign workers under the H-1B visa program. This slap at open labor markets is downplayed as a dramatic but toothless gesture in favor of "Hire American," nice companion to the "Buy American"...

WASHINGTON: For decades, high-skilled professionals from across the world, particularly India, have fought their way to US citizenship through legal immigration channels — a process that can take up to a decade or more. Now, Uncle Sam is making it easy. Fight your way — literally — to American citizenship in as little as six months. In a far reaching proposal, the US military will open its doors to skilled immigrant guest workers (such as those who hold H-1B visas) who have lived in the US for a minimum of two years. The move is aimed at offsetting the poor...

U.S. announces arrests in several states alleging visa fraud Federal agents on Thursday said they arrested 11 people in six states in a crackdown on H-1B visa fraud and unsealed documents that detail how the visa process was used to undercut the salaries of U.S. workers. Federal authorities allege that in some cases, H-1B workers were paid the prevailing wages of low-cost regions and not necessarily the higher salaries paid in the locations where they worked. By doing this, the companies were "displacing qualified American workers and violating prevailing wage laws," said federal authorities in a statement announcing the indictments.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's reaction to a limited set of stricter rules for banks hiring foreign workers answers a bar debate that long has raged. The question has always been whether if we had another Great Depression would the Chamber still continue to lobby for more foreign workers on the basis of worker shortages. This week, the debate is settled. YES, THEY WOULD! The Chamber and immigration lawyers are in an uproar over a provision placed in the Stimulus Bill by socialist Sen. Sanders of Vermont and Republican Sen. Grassley of Iowa. Any bank receiving Stimulus money should not be...

<p>Former eBay Inc. Chief Executive Meg Whitman on Monday launched an exploratory committee to plot a possible run for California'a governorship in 2010.</p> <p>The 52-year-old Republican would be vying to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger, who must leave office in 2011 because of term limits. Former Gov. Pete Wilson would be her campaign chairman, her advisers said.</p>

Job cuts by tech firms are putting the controversial H-1B guest-worker program in the spotlight once again. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, kicked off the latest debate in January by publicly calling on Microsoft to prioritize American workers over foreign guest workers as the software giant downsizes. In the wake of Grassley’s letter to Microsoft, questions have been raised about the legality of axing H-1B workers first. And H-1B critics have stepped up their attacks on a program they say makes little sense during a time of corporate belt-tightening. H-1B visas rarely go to exceptional talent and often are used by...

A citizen of India, Rajendrasinh B. Makwana attempted to sabotage the computer database at Fannie Mae. He was, according to news reports, employed as a so-called temporary foreign worker who had been authorized to work in the United States temporarily under the provisions of the H1B visa that had been issued to him. Here’s how this appalling situation can be summed up: This is the real threat to society, not the sinking of Fannie Mae. But the strange case of Makwana does bring up a number of issues. The main one is the use of H1B visa workers – and...

When you are here in the USA as an H1B visa holder, your company sponsors you, and you live your life. When your company goes into layoff mode, and H1B visa holders are suddenly without employment and sponsorship, life can quickly turn into a nightmare, with people often being sent back home immediately unless they can get new employment. BAE law group in Seattle is offering a number of free seminars for H1B visa holders that I hope they broadcast on the internet. This is not an issue that is confined to Seattle only, and in my understanding of this...

For the two out-of-work engineers, it's a race against time. They've lost their Silicon Valley jobs and need to quickly find others at a time when companies everywhere are tightening their belts. Both are Indians whose advanced degrees were earned at American universities. And both are facing the inflexible rules of their H-1B work visas. Technically, as soon as they lost their jobs, they were required to leave the country. In reality, they can probably wing it for a week or two, but not much longer. This stark dilemma is being repeated with increasing frequency across SiliconValley, according to immigration...

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Economy/India_asks_US_for_more_work_visas/articleshow/3837505.cms The Indian government has asked the US to increase the number of work visas (H1-B and L1) and ensure that there be no legislation to prevent companies from applying for such visas.

Based on statements he made during the presidential campaign,... His plans include making the research and development tax credit permanent; reforming immigration rules to let U.S. companies hire and retain workers more easily; increasing broadband access to individuals and to schools, libraries and hospitals...

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama's advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice. During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a "sad chapter in American history" and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to handle the detainees. But he has offered few details on what he planned to do once the facility is closed....

Widespread problems, fraud found in H-1B programU.S. study finds incidents of forged documents, fake degrees, 'shell' companiesAn internal report by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) examining the H-1B visa program has found evidence of forged documents and fake degrees, and even "shell" companies giving addresses of fake locations.The USCIS report, released Wednesday by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), indicates that serious violations of the H-1B program by employers are so common that one in five visas are affected by either fraud or "technical violations." This means that potentially thousands of employers may be violating the rules, some willfully.Employers...

A study finds that 13% of the visa petitions for U.S. employers to bring in skilled foreign workers are fraudulent A report released Oct. 8 by the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) reveals that 13% of petitions filed for H-1B visas on behalf of employers are fraudulent. Another 8% contain some sort of technical violations. The study, released to members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, marks the first time the agency, part of the Homeland Security Dept., has documented systematic problems with the controversial program. Technology companies, in particular, have come to rely on the H-1B visa program...

Should education and experience always command a high salary? It seems reasonable to think so — yet older employees with advanced degrees may lack the specialized skills needed to satisfy rapidly changing market demand. In perhaps no field is this more true than the tech industry. I recently conducted an e-mail interview with Norm Matloff, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who believes there is widespread age discrimination in the tech industry. (His busy schedule made it impossible to get Matloff on the phone.) In particular, Matloff contends that the tech industry has manufactured a false talent shortage...

The high-priced corporate lobbyists walking Capitol Hill corridors have a new mantra: innovation. They demand that Congress bring in more guest workers, especially from Asia, in order to maintain American innovation supremacy. The lobbyists' backup buzzword is "the best and the brightest." They argue that U.S. workers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics are in short supply and we must now import foreign engineers and scientists, i.e., allow the multinationals to bring in an increased or even unlimited number of H-1B visas. Their argument lacks evidence: Economics 101 teaches that shortages in labor or goods produce higher wages or higher...

Comprehensive immigration reform may have eluded the 110th Congress, but House Democrats are still hoping to help two groups of workers — fashion models and computer geeks — who are usually linked only in implausible online fantasies. Under current immigration policy, models coming to the United States for a photo shoot or an event — regardless of how short the stay — compete with high-tech workers for precious H-1B visas. But under a bill that cleared the Judiciary Committee last week, the models would be moved into a separate immigration category, freeing up more H-1B slots for the much-needed nerds....

iGate isn't only 'villain' hiring foreign high-tech workers By Mark Houser TRIBUNE-REVIEW A local high-tech company has put a Pittsburgh face on a national debate about hiring foreign workers. Computer consulting firm iGate Corp. of Findlay paid the Justice Department $45,000 in April to settle charges it discriminated against U.S. workers by posting online job ads seeking foreigners with special visas. The fine for favoring holders of H-1B visas, which go primarily to computer and engineering specialists, is the highest yet, said Justice Department spokeswoman Jamie Hais. Critics say cases such as iGate's are not the only problem with the...

Now that big corporate lobbyists know they can't get amnesty for the millions of cheap laborers they have imported illegally, they are pushing to increase the number of so-called high-skilled workers by raising the cap of H-1B visas. The pressure is on the House of Representatives to pass an increase soon, most likely in the form of the SKIL Act (H.R. 1930), sponsored by Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ), usually a conservative ally. There are three reasons why Big Business wants to increase foreign workers: * H-1Bers are paid much less than Americans * The influx of H-1Bers depresses the "prevailing...

...ated in 1990, H1-B visas allow companies to sponsor highly educated foreigners -- architects, doctors, engineers, scientists among them -- to work in the United States for at least three years. The H1-B program, which accounts for nearly all skilled immigrants admitted to work here each year, is capped annually at 65,000 for people with a bachelor's degree or higher, plus an additional 20,000 for those with a master's degree or higher. Skilled immigrants have long contributed to rising U.S. standards of living. They bring human capital, brimming with ideas for new technologies and new companies. They bring financial capital...

U.S. unemployment may be a concern, but tech companies are telling Congress they need more skilled workers from overseas. With the Apr. 1 application deadline for H-1B specialty worker visas looming, tech giants like Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), and Google (GOOG) are stepping up efforts to raise the cap on the number of visa workers they can have access to each year. Microsoft's Bill Gates argued in Congress (BusinessWeek.com, 3/12/08) for the second straight year that there's a severe shortfall in U.S. science and engineering talent, and predicted that for the fifth straight year the cap for worker visas would...

Thank you for contacting me to share your views on increasing the number of H-1B visas. I appreciate hearing from you. Like most countries of the world, the United States limits the type and number of foreign workers who can enter our country. As you know, H-1B visas are used by foreign nationals who will be employed temporarily in a specialty occupation due to their skilled knowledge. H-1B visas have several safeguards for not displacing American workers, such as requiring employers to attest to the lack of an available U.S. worker with proper skills and requiring employers to pay a...

Microsoft today praised a bill introduced in the U.S. Congress that would double the number of immigrant worker visas available each year under the H-1B program. The Innovation Employment Act, introduced by Representative Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, late Thursday, would increase the cap in H-1B visas from 65,000 a year to 130,000 a year. In addition, there would be no cap on H-1B applications for foreign graduate students attending U.S. colleges and studying science, technology and related fields. Currently, there's a 20,000-a-year cap on visas for graduate students in all fields. The legislation would increase the H-1B cap to...

US high-tech companies are being forced to outsource more jobs overseas because of outdated restrictions on immigration, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told Congress Wednesday. Gates, echoing a longstanding complaint from the technology sector, told a congressional panel that the US immigration system "makes attracting and retaining high-skilled immigrants exceptionally challenging for US firms." "Congress's failure to pass high-skilled immigration reform has exacerbated an already grave situation," Gates said in remarks prepared for delivery to a hearing of the House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee. "As a result, many US firms, including Microsoft, have been forced to locate staff in...

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Monday sent a letter to the U.S. Homeland Security Dept. quizzing secretary Michael Chertoff about what progress the Bush administration has made toward H-B visa reforms. In his letter, Grassley -- the co-sponsor of a Senate bill last year to counter H-1B visa abuse and fraud -- asked Chertoff for an update on immigration reforms promised last August by the Bush administration. Specifically, last year Chertoff and Commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez announced that the Dept. of Homeland Security and Dept. of Labor "would study and report on potential administrative reforms to visa programs for highly...

The Offshoring of America's Top Jobs Many of America's top jobs are moving offshore. Which jobs are most likely to be hit by "offshoring" and what can you do to protect and safeguard your career?Jobs that are most likely to be moved offshore have these Characteristics: Work is highly repetitive (accounting) Work is predictable and well defined (customer service) Can be broken down into small manageable projects (software development) Can be turned into a routine (Tele-marketing) Proximity to the end customer is not important (phone based tech support of consumer products) End customer has already moved offshore (semiconductor sales) Jobs...

Immigration Moves Eyed; House Democrats Ponder an Election-Year Bill Steven T. Dennis, ROLL CALL STAFF House Democrats are crafting scaled-down immigration reform legislation despite the political minefields that surround the issue, with Hispanic Members seeking five-year visas for illegal immigrants who pay fines and pass criminal background checks. Immigration reform had been left for dead after last year's Senate train wreck, but pressures for at least stopgap immigration legislation have bubbled up within the Democratic Caucus. It's unclear if the behind-the-scenes discussions will actually result in a bill coming to the floor, but Democrats say drafts of legislation already have...

Countering the rancour in the West against outsourcing of jobs, the chairman of IT major Wipro [Get Quote] has said India was not stealing their jobs and its businesses were moving into developed countries, which did not have enough skilled graduates to compete in the global economy. "What is of concern is how serious a shortage of technical talent is building up in the western world. Global companies are going to where not enough young boys and girls are getting into math, science and engineering. That trend is not being reversed," Azim Premji said. Premji said that as Wipro expands...

December 21, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Five years ago, some unemployed IT workers in Connecticut formed an advocacy group to fight against the H-1B and L-1 visa programs. The group's strategy was old-fashioned for the Internet Age, relying on face-to-face lobbying to reach out to federal lawmakers. And the group, called The Organization for the Rights of American Workers (TORAW), was successful in getting visa-reform legislation introduced in Congress. But now TORAW is disbanding, according to John Bauman, president of the Meriden, Conn.-based group. Bauman said this week that he has made 16 trips to Washington this year and met with...

One myth dogging the immigration debate is that employers are fibbing (or grossly exaggerating) when they claim that hiring foreign professionals is unavoidable because U.S.-born Ph.D.s are hard to come by. But a new report on doctorates from U.S. universities shows they're telling the truth, and then some. Foreign-born students holding temporary visas received 33% of all research doctorates awarded by U.S. universities in 2006, according to an annual survey by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. That number has climbed from 25% in 2001. But more to the point of business competitiveness, foreign students comprised...