http://www.h1b.info/about.php About the H-1B Visa
by JJ Kuhl (May 2003 revision)
In March 2003, the American Engineering Association reported that the U.S. high-tech sector lost 560,000 jobs--a 10 percent decline--between January 2001 and December 2002. During the same period, companies sponsored more than this number of high-tech workers on H-1B and other temporary visas.
The Immigration Act of 1990 established an annual quota of 65,000 H-1B visas. The stated purpose was to bring "the best and the brightest" to American shores. This number of available visas became a fixed requirement under the World Trade Agreement.
During the late 1990s, the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), whose members include the major US technology companies and the India outsourcing companies, lobbied both Congressional Democrats and Republicans with high campaign contributions to raise the H-1B cap to 195,000 workers annually. They succeeded once in 1998 to raise the cap temporarily to 115,000, but that wasn't enough for ITAA. They lobbied again in 2000 and the following is what happened.
On Tuesday, October 3, 2000, at 3:45 PM, a House of Representatives clerk announced the Senate passage of S. 2045. An act to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act with respect to H-1B nonimmigrant aliens (ironically named the "American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000"). Immediately following, the Speaker pro tempore announced that she would postpone further proceedings on the remaining motions and that any record votes on postponed questions would be taken on October 4th.
On the evening of October 3rd, a presidential debate between Bush and Gore was occurring and the majority of Representatives, as well as the press, were preparing for the debate. As it had been announced that no further votes would be taken, most Representatives left.
But at around 5:30 PM an email was sent announcing that an H-1B debate would begin shortly. Major supporters of the increased H-1B cap came to the House for the vote. Only approximately 40 out of the 435 members were present.
A bit prior to 6:30 PM, Cannon (R-UT) made a motion to suspend the rules and pass Senate bill S2045 (which had been passed that morning) instead of voting on the House bills, one of which (introduced by Smith (R-TX)) included worker protections and had properly gone through the Judiciary committee-however, it was known that the tech companies opposed those worker protections.
There were only two copies of the Senate bill in the House that night, in non-compliance with House Rules. Mr. Cannon had one, the Speaker had the other, although it is interesting to note that the Speaker's copy of S. 2045 that the House clerk read into the congressional record (which is the only knowledge of the bill for the other Representatives there that night) was not the bill that was ultimately enacted. The numbers entered into the record (on page H8699 under "Sec. 2. Temporary Increase in Visa Allotments") were (1) 80,000 for fiscal year 2000; (2) 87,500 for fiscal year 2001; and (3) 130,000 for fiscal year 2002.
The Speaker allotted control of 20 minutes each to Cannon and Conyers (D-MI), leaving little opportunity for debate. Rorabacher (R-CA) stated, "This legislation is nothing more than a betrayal of American working people." Owens (D-NY) said, "What we are doing here is steamrolling through a cap. We will have a cap which amounts to almost 600,000 people over a 3-year period."
Smith (R-TX) was vocal in the issues he had with the Senate bill and his upset with it being railroaded through the House that night by Cannon, Conyers and Lofgren (D-CA). In the record, Smith detailed the polls of the American public that were overwhelmingly against raising the labor importation cap. In addition, he noted, "The goals of preventing abuse of the program and providing efficient services to employers and workers are not being achieved. Evidence suggests that program noncompliance or abuse by employers may be more prevalent than under other laws."
Using various procedural moves, the GOP leaders ended the debate quickly and called for a voice vote, even though the House was nearly empty. Needless to say, the H-1B increase was passed with no vote record, and only Cox News Service reported on it.
Since the day this passed, the new annual maximum of 195,000 H-1B visas have been issued in spite of the economic downturn, and the majority of these H-1B visas were used in Information Technology professions.
The official cap is not the actual number of H-1Bs admitted to the US each year as some are exempt from the cap. As a result, during 2002 there were a total of 312,000 new H-1B visas issued, in spite of record unemployment. (The cap of 195,000 is set to expire in October 2003 and return to the 65,000 annual cap as established in the Immigration Act of 1990. ITAA has been lobbying to maintain the high cap permanently.)
The result of this labor glut is that US citizen IT workers aren't even obtaining job interviews. This is especially true for older, more experienced American IT workers. US students graduating with engineering degrees are also being shut out of the job market.
These workers, often rejected on the employer claim of "over-qualification," have state-of-the-art skills far in excess of the majority of their H-1B replacements, many of whom have little or no experience. (IT education is a recent phenomena in India, as it began about ten years ago in a Catholic school in Bangalore. INA ACT 203 [8 U.S.C. 1182] (the result of the 10/3/00 legislation) contains subsection B2 --Aliens who are members of the professions holding advanced degrees or aliens of exceptional ability. The vast majority of H-1B visa holders do not have advanced degrees and have limited skills, yet obtain their visas through this category.)
In many cases, American workers have been forced to train their H-1B replacements in order to obtain severance packages when they are laid off.
Since the H-1B cap was raised in 2000, 9 out of 10 new jobs in IT have been awarded to H-1Bs. By the end of December 2001 more than 890,000 H-1B workers were employed in the United States. Add to this the 312,000 from 2002 and you have a total of 1,202,000 H-1Bs replacing US citizens and green card holders by year end 2002.
Special interests have imported more than 17 million non-citizens to glut the labor market between the years 1985-2002.
In addition, there has been a recognized bias among H-1B (and L-1) hiring managers to hire only those of the same sex, age and ethnic origin as themselves, in direct non-compliance with US labor laws. Few of these activities have been reported.
As bad as this is, companies are also using L-1 visas to go beyond the H-1B cap. L-1s are intra-company transfers used to transfer aliens to work for a US firm or subsidiary of a company which already employs them outside of the US. There are over 325,000 L-1 visa holders in the US and that number is growing rapidly, as there is no cap on L-1s.
As an example of this practice, Microsoft in November 2002 announced plans to build a half-billion dollar complex in Hyderabad, India. With this new development center, Microsoft can use L-1 visas to displace further US citizen employees and will not be subject to H-1B caps. Other major companies in the US are doing the same. This is why reform is needed across all US visa types and not just for H-1B visas alone. It was through the use of these "special" visas that all of the September 11th terrorists secured admittance to the United States. There is virtually no security or monitoring of these special visa holders.
Further compounding the already gloomy economic condition, recent research from Forrester Research indicates that the percentage of offshore outsourcing for US IT budgets took a leap from 12 percent in 2000 to 28 percent in 2003. META Group, Inc. predicted that offshore outsourcing overall would grow more than 20 percent annually.
Special visas and offshore outsourcing go hand-in-hand, as many companies import H-1B and L1 workers, force US citizens to train them, then offshore the work and lay off their US staff. Also, offshore development contracts usually have a US presence of H-1Bs and L1s to perform "face-time" with their US clients and to lobby for further offshore work. This tactic has been highly successful for the major Indian offshore outsourcing companies like Infosys, Cognizant, MphasIS, Wipro, Tata (all members of ITAA) and other companies who have gotten into this profitable game.
Like I said .. you don't know what your talking about