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In pressuring Congress to expand the H-1B work visa and employment-based green card programs, industry lobbyists have recently adopted a new tack. Seeing that their past cries of a tech labor shortage are contradicted by stagnant or declining wages, their new buzzword is innovation. Building on their perennial assertion that the foreign workers are “the best and the brightest,” they now say that continued U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) hinges on our ability to import the world’s best engineers and scientists. Yet, this Backgrounder will present new data analysis showing that the vast majority of the...

SAN JOSE, CA (TDR) - Hundreds of angry programmers took to the streets burning Indian flags, and chanting anti-Indian slogans after Wednesday morning production meetings. The protesters - mostly young males - have reached a boiling point after years of technological imperialism and failed Indian programming policies. Busy midday traffic came to a halt as this once proud high-tech mecca was transformed into raging, socially-challenged powder keg of humanity...

WASHINGTON: A leading Republican Presidential hopeful has thrown his weight behind the H1B visa programme stressing that bringing high skilled workers on a permanent basis to the US will be beneficial to the economy. Former Massachusetts Gover Mitt Romney has said that while he is in favour of increasing the quota for H1B visa, a majority of whose aspirants are Indians, the exact figures would depend on a number of things including the strength of the US economy and the implications for the local workforce. “I like H1B visas. I like the idea of the best and brightest in the...

SAN JOSE, Calif. -The placards made clear this was not your typical immigrant rights march: “We played by the rules, now it’s your turn,” read one. “Legal immigrants keep America competitive,” read another. High-tech workers here on federal permits are speaking out - many for the first time - over rules that leave them in personal and professional limbo. After Congress failed to reform immigration laws for the second year in a row, hundreds of the largely India- and China-born workers protested this summer in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. They were frustrated that the divisive debate over illegal immigration...

FSB -- When Elizabeth Charnock couldn't find the talent she needed to keep her small Silicon Valley software company Cataphora (catphora.com) growing, she looked for workers overseas. Finding the skilled employees she sought, the CEO applied for eight H1B visas for fiscal 2008. The documents enable foreigners with technical skills to work temporarily in the U.S. "We did everything you're supposed to do," says Charnock. "We hired an immigration lawyer, we filed the first day. It went into a lottery. Five of our eight hires got visas." Two of the three that didn't had already sold their homes to move...

Great immigration debate has Indians steamed up 24 May, 2007 l 2200 hrs ISTlCHIDANAND RAJGHATTA/TIMES WASHINGTON: The fate of tens of thousands of high-skilled Indian professionals waiting to be permanent US residents is being sidelined in an immigration debate that is heavily tilted in favor of illegal workers, according to advocates of high-tech immigration and Indian activists. Close to 450,000 Indian professionals are caught up in the H1-B-Green Card gridlock, but the immigration bill currently being debated in Congress will exacerbate their agony instead of resolving the matter, activists for the skilled immigrants lobby say. Despite the support of US...

California continues to employ far more technology workers, pay higher wages and attract more venture capital than any other state. But the overall U.S. tech sector is also growing at a surprisingly brisk clip - for now. That's the conclusion of a highly anticipated annual report by AeA, formerly the American Electronics Association, the country's largest technology trade association. Researchers relied on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, mostly from 2006. According to the 2007 "Cyberstates" report, to be published Tuesday, the U.S. tech industry employed 5.8 million people last year - up 2.6 percent from 2005. The...

The master plan, it seems, is to move perhaps 40 million high-skill American jobs to other countries. U.S. workers have not been consulted. Princeton economist Alan Blinder predicts that these choice jobs could be lost in a mere decade or two. We speak of computer programming, bookkeeping, graphic design and other careers once thought firmly planted in American soil. For perspective, 40 million is more than twice the total number of people now employed in manufacturing. Blinder was taken aback when, sitting in at the business summit in Davos, Switzerland, he heard U.S. executives talk enthusiastically about all the professional...

EE Times: Semi News With The H-1B Visa Cap Filled In Record Time, Reform Is In The Air http://i.cmpnet.com/infoweek/1133/133NAfiles_r_110.jpg Marianne Kolbasuk McGee Page 1 of 3 InformationWeek (04/07/2007 12:00 AM EDT) For both critics and supporters of the H-1B visa, two days last week revealed everything you need to know about the foreign worker program, one of the most controversial topics in business technology. In the first two days that the U.S. government accepted applications for H-1B work visas, 133,000 envelopes poured in with applications seeking 65,000 openings. The crush was enough that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services cut off...

....But the team has a big problem. Mr. Shyiak was born in Canada and is working as a so-called temporary H1-B professional worker. His visa is expiring and U.S. immigration officials fret that this foreigner may be taking a job from an American citizen. So the university must comply with rules that require it to verify that there is no American worker who is "able, willing, qualified, and available to accept the job at the prevailing wage for that occupation." The university is taking out newspaper ads for the hockey team's head-coach position and hoping no one applies. ...Scott McNealy,...

Phone Senators this morn -- Cornyn SKIL Act giant increase in foreign workers ready to pass YOU'VE STOPPED EVERY OTHER IMMIGRATION DISASTER THIS YEAR ... ... NOW STOP THIS LAST ATTEMPT BEFORE CONGRESS GOES HOME Please phone the congressional leaders listed below and urge them: "Do NOT entertain debate on Sen. Cornyn's H-1B bill. Oppose all increases in H-1B visas."Capitol Switchboard 202-224-3121 By the time you wake up later this morning and read this, Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) will be well on his way to ramming through a bill to radically increase foreign workers in the tech, nursing, physical therapy, science...

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins has sent letters to the heads of the U.S. Department of Labor and the Citizenship and Immigration Service, asking what their agencies have done to address problems in foreign-labor programs that were detailed in a recent Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram investigation. Collins wrote in her capacity as chairwoman of the Senate's Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. It's the first official call for answers from federal authorities since the newspaper's series ran in late September. The three-part series detailed concerns about the H1B visa program and the permanent green-card system. H1B visas let skilled...

In California's Silicon Valley, the superstars of the high-tech industry are all immigrants: * Pierre Omidyar, born in France, founded eBay * Andrew Grove, born in Hungary, helped start Intel * Sergey Brin, from Russia, co-founded Google Siva Singaram, from India, would like to follow in their footsteps. "Currently I've got an idea for a startup company," says Singaram. "It's in the field of Internet advertising." But because he has no green card, he'll have to return to India to start his company. Singaram and his wife Sangeetha, expecting a baby in May, are here on temporary skilled workers visas....

When techies consider unions By Aliza Earnshaw, The Business Journal of Portland The very notion of a labor union for software developers and other information-technology workers may strike some as paradoxical, or even ridiculous. After all, techies are thought of as well-compensated, highly skilled workers. So the beginnings of a techie labor union here in the Portland area, called ORTech, may come as a surprise to many who work with or are themselves high-tech workers. "THEY [TECHIES] THINK of themselves as highly skilled individuals who are valued for what they are," said Ilya Ratner, a programmer with years of experience...

030930 H1B visa holders may not have to pay social security tax soon 2003-09-30 13:01:53 The Economic Times Tuesday, September 30, 2003| Updated at 21:36 hrs IST http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?xml=0&artid=25500046&sType=1 H1-B visa holders may not have to pay social security tax soon JAMES MATHEW & KRISHNA KANT TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2002 12:55:44 AM ] NEW DELHI: There is good news for all those who are there in the US on a H1-B visa. India is close to signing the administrative protocol with the US on abolishing social security tax charged by the US administration on those H-1B visa holders....

ESSEX JUNCTION, Vt. -- Top computer hardware maker IBM, reeling from a drop-off in business, is laying off hundreds of employees to cut costs, according to media reports Monday. There was no statement from IBM early Monday. However, two Vermont television stations reported layoffs had already begun at IBM factory spanning the Winooski River in Essex Junction and Williston. WCAX-TV, citing someone who had been informed he was being laid off, reported that 700 people were losing their jobs in the latest contraction at IBM. WPTZ-TV said "hundreds" had been informed they were losing their jobs during a shift change...

COMING TO AMERICA 'Cult of multiculturalism' vs. U.S. sovereignty Congressman blames liberals, Bush's open-door policy for immigration crisis Posted: August 3, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern Editor's note: WorldNetDaily is pleased to have a content-sharing agreement with Insight magazine, the bold Washington publication not afraid to ruffle establishment feathers. Subscribe to Insight at WorldNetDaily's online store and save 71 percent off the cover price. By Paula R. Kaufman © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Thomas Tancredo is a third-term Republican congressman from Colorado. As chairman of the 65-member Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus he deals regularly with such facts as these: More than 33.1 million...

‘‘Outsourcing," "offshoring," "human resource realignment," "training your replacement." These are words that send chills through millions of workers in IT ("information technology") and other hi-tech industries. They also send waves of anger and depression. In the tragic case of Kevin Flanagan, they are being blamed for his suicide. For months, the 41-year-old Silicon Valley software programmer had been anticipating a layoff announcement from his employer, Bank of America. "He knew that Bank of America was sending jobs overseas," Contra Costa Times reporter Ellen Lee wrote in a May 13th article. "He had seen his friends and coworkers leave until only...

Everyone in the room, from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello, was beaming at last week's announcement. The news was that Asia's largest computer consultant has become a deep-pocket partner of the University at Buffalo. Under an agreement signed Monday, Tata Consultancy Services of India will partner with local researchers and help transform their discoveries into money-making products. Products mean jobs, the strongly desired byproduct of Buffalo's $140 million Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics. But jobs where? Advocates say the Indian company's capital and business links will mean economic spin-off benefits in Western New York and abroad....

<p>PLEASANTON -- PeopleSoft Inc., whose software is used to process payroll and track inventory, will shift some consulting work to India to lower the costs of customizing programs for clients. Pleasanton-based PeopleSoft is working with Hexaware Technologies Ltd., an Indian consulting company, to open an office in Bangalore in June. Hexaware consultants will configure PeopleSoft programs for customers' specific needs, said Bill Henry, a PeopleSoft vice president of strategy and marketing.</p>

NewsMax.com Wires and NewsMax.com Thursday, March 20, 2003 Computer giant Sun Microsystems Inc. fired thousands of American high-tech workers to replace them with younger, lower-paid engineers from India, a lawsuit charges. The legal action will step up the conflict between technology companies and American engineers over the H-1B visa program, which lets companies "temporarily" bring foreign workers into the United States ... whether they are needed or not. Class-action status is being sought for the lawsuit, filed Monday by Walter Kruz, 52, in California Superior Court in Santa Clara. He worked at Sun from May 2000 until late 2001, when...