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No, that is a different issue than the H-1b matter. H-1b's can't depress tech job wages below what an American would be able to economically justify since the holder of an H-1b visa is also living in America, facing the same level of costs as an American would. You are thinking of outsourcing to other countries.

That is not to suggest I am a big fan of H-1B visas. I think that if there is a 'shortage' of technically capable people, then wages should go up and more people will then train themselves and educate themselves to get those jobs which would expand the work pool and allow wages to come back down; I don't think the answer is to expand the work pool artificially by importing tons of foreigners. But it is a different issue.

So the question becomes, are wages be depressed in these jobs that illegals are currently working (which tend to be lower paying ones) by them being here by more than the amount of added cost there will be in ensuring that the p's and q's are taken care of in meeting the requirements of this law? I am skeptical.

Besides, I still think people are overstating how many current aliens would take 'advantage' of this system. Let's say I am an illegal immigrant. I took a job with some forged papers. I want to take advantage of this, so I don't have to worry about being caught. I go to my employer, and now my employer (who for me to become legal has to vouch for the fact that there was no American who wanted my job) has to decide if he is going to fire me for lying about things in the first place, and then may end up finding some American citizen to take my job, the very job I need to stay, in order to meet the criteria specified. I bet the percentage would be small.

But there is still my main concern, the concern I have which tells me this whole thing is a bad idea. The fact that judges could gut the good parts of any such plan, leaving only the garbage. It is too big of a risk.

Actually I was talking about the H1-b situation, maybe ignorantly.

It was my understanding that when the dot-com collapse occurred it was the H1-b visa folks who elected to take the huge hits in salary necessary to stay employed while those paying off staggering college education loans initially refused to take the hit thinking they could find more equitable salaries elsewhere.

In the end the American techies were simply unemployed but their Plan B (a humble return to the mother ship for a lot less pay) back door was shut by the H1-bs.

So the question becomes, are wages be depressed in these jobs that illegals are currently working

I'm talking about the system Bush proposes which matches willing domestic employers to willing foreign workers after determining that the domestic labor supply is exhausted. This system will apply to Lockheed Aerospace as well as McDonald's as far as I know.