Posted on 03/14/2006 8:24:36 PM PST by nickcarraway
US Congress is likely to take up a giant immigration bill this month, which recommends nearly doubling the number of H-1B skilled-worker temporary visas to 115,000.
The measures include not just increasing the number of visas but also add an option of raising the cap 20 per cent more each year.
If passed, the provisions buried in the Senate's giant immigration bill, would open the country's doors to highly skilled immigrants for science, math, technology and engineering jobs.
The provisions were sought by Silicon Valley tech companies and enjoy significant bipartisan support amid concern that the United States might lose its lead in technology.
They would broaden avenues to legal immigration for foreign tech workers and would put those with advanced degrees on an automatic path to permanent residence should they want it, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
H-1B visas were highly controversial in the Bay Area when their numbers reached a peak of 195,000 in 2003.
The new skilled immigration measures are part of a controversial 300-page bill by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa, now being rewritten by the committee with the goal of reaching the Senate floor by the end of the month.
Other provisions include a new F-4 visa category for students pursuing advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
These students would be granted permanent residence if they find a job in their field and pay a $1,000 fee toward scholarships and training of US workers.
Congress had increased the visas during the late 1990s dot-com boom, when Silicon Valley complained of tech-worker shortages, although native-born engineers complained that their wages were undermined by cheap labour from India and China.
With the tech crash and the revelation that some of the September 11, 2001, hijackers had entered the country on student visas, the political climate for foreign workers darkened, and Congress quietly allowed the number of H-1B visas to plummet back to 65,000 a year.
The cap was reached in August -- in effect turning off the tap of the visas for 14 months. A special exemption of 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees was reached in January.
"We're in a bad crunch right now," said Laura Reiff, head of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a business umbrella group backing more immigration. "We are totally jammed on immigrant visas, the green card category, and totally jammed on H-1B visas. You can't bring in tech workers right now."
The provisions for highly skilled workers enjoy support in both parties in the Senate and in the Bush administration after a raft of high-profile studies have warned that the United States is not producing enough math and science students and is in danger of losing its global edge in innovation to India and China.
However, opponents of broadening immigration for skilled workers said doing so would defeat efforts to get more Americans interested in science, math, engineering and other technological fields.
We also owe our Veterans a huge debt...this is outside normal economic policy IMO.
It is my contention, however, that the area to the RIGHT of the mean of the income curve is also being distorted...significantly...by a whole host of government programs, the monstrous tax and regulatory codes for one, and other government lobbyist efforts for another.
Guest labor and immigration non-enforcement is yet another... all of these policies act to reinforce certain occupations and income levels, at the expense of other levels. This is why you will not find the actual income distribution curves discussed in economics papers...they are much too reveling of what is really going on.
Do you think it is an accident that Teresa Heinz Kerry pays less, percentage wise, as income tax than you or I do?
It is my contention that the Social Darwinism we see being advocated is actually selected groups and individuals using the federal and state governments to enrich themselves, at the expense of other groups.
Conservatives who favor unlimited guest workers, must eventually confront the reality, than in a society which allows wholesale replacement of higher paying jobs with equivalent non-free market negotiated lower paying H1b or guest worker jobs, is setting up a system whereby the only protected jobs are:
Entertainment related jobs
Jobs which require individual high levels of creativity, expression, talent, and a recognized name recognition. Talent falls along the same bell curve...these jobs are by definition limited.
Government jobs
Jobs which are required by, and involve daily interaction with a government entity..ie legal and law enforcement for example.
Union or trade regulated jobs
The net result of all this, is unfortunately...MORE GOVERNMENT and socialism...not less.
Its a self reinforcing system..what engineers like to call POSITIVE FEEDBACK.
The left is split on immigration like the right. The blacks and union people don't want the low wage immigrants. The hollywood elites want someone to cut their lawns, clean their mansions, and take care of the kids.
Personally, I'm with Bush, we need some reasonable guest worker program and I think the H1B's are good for america and are better than a lot of native born americans in terms of their work habits.
That what a lot of us thought we where doing in 1994 then the good old career boys took over.
But yo are right we have got to stop sending rich second generation silver spooned elitist who care nothing about our country's and it's people's independence and sovereignty.
They just care about making them and their rich globalist business friends richer.
They have just about built their world where the rich own and use the law to gett richer and everybody is expected to shut up and do what you are told.
I'll bet that JohnnyZ doesn't have time to wade through the survey. But I did - see post #158. The survey - limited as it is - does backup JohnnyZ's premise. But you need data on the number of BS degrees to answer you question - not PhD's. So see post #152 for some scary statistics.
Thank you, Serenissima. A mature voice is refreshing after being pelted with inanities.
Don't know what to tell you, you're probably right. Adam Smith used the phrase "nation of shopkeepers" to describe the exchange of talent and time for money. We're now a "world of shopkeepers." The competition is not just down the street or across the country, but on the other side of the globe.
But what is the role of government in this? Do we "apply" government power domestically to smooth the humps and bumps of a global economy or do we apply it on the international front to isolate ourselves via tariffs etc.?
If I was smart enough to figure this out, I'd be a rich guy.
No, it isn't. All it means is that the prospect of toiling for five years getting paid $15k/year, with the prospect of finding a $40k/year postdoc is not an attractive option for American citizens. It is, however, very attractive for citizens of China, India and the countries of the former Soviet bloc.
Frankly, IT and engineering jobs are overrated and overpaid. So you can program in C. So you can crunch numbers for structural fatigue. So?
I know "engineers" that do nothing but give presentations a few times a week, and the expect 70-90 large a year...they have the education, or so they say. Or the same job can be H1B'd to Raul, he only expects 30 large for sitting on his duff, playing with Windows and posting to FR between presentations.
When your plumbing freezes in the middle of the night and blows your pipes to pieces, who do you call? A plumber, he'll charge whatever he darn well pleases and you'll be happy to pay so you don't have to crawl around in the freezing water and sewage yourself. Unfortunately, most "professional" jobs aren't this critical, I can do without my latest update to windows for much longer than I can do without water.
And yes, I'm an electronic engineer.
Claiming that "THE US DOESN'T GRADUATE ENOUGH MATH AND SCIENCE" without providing any supporting evidence - now, that's inanity.
Not to mention the bible-thumpers who want to roll back the science classes to the 1700's.
Republican party is an uneasy coalition... As Mark Steyn once quipped "British Conservatism will never have the gun nuts, anti-abortionists, Wall Street types and Christian fundamentalists who make Republican gatherings look like the result of a dating agency run by sadists"
Still, Republicans are more rational than SUV-driving Democrats who want to cut fossil-fuel consumption while shutting down nuclear power plants.
From the article:
a raft of high-profile studies have warned that the United States is not producing enough math and science students
As for the specific studies, look 'em up yourself if you want to claim they're all fraudulent.
The way our political system works is that interested parties and their lobbyists first decide what the result of the "studies" will be and then manufacture it.
I am so tired of this argument.
H-1B visas are temporary visas for those with a Bachelor's degree or higher in a specific field. They are not easy to get and they are only good for 6 years. there is much an employer has to do to hire an H-1B worker, there cannot be any strikes, salaries to be paid to the H-1B worker have to be posted onsite in 2 conspicuous locations making them accessible to all US employees. Those employees who don't like it can report the problem to the DOL and are in fact encouraged to do so.
What you should be more concerned with and bitching about is that there are "prevailing" wages for H-1B employees and usually they are higher than what is being paid to US employees. The U.S. employees should be demanding that the same "prevailing wage" determinations be used across the board so US workers aren't being paid less than the H-1B counter-parts.
I don't believe that a physicist/engineer/mathematician with a PhD would make $40K a year.
A newly graduated engineer with no experience should start off making more than that and mathematicians/physicists probably around $40K (joboutlook.com). An engineer with a PE averages $100K a year. So I believe your numbers aren't quite right.
I imagine there are the occasional people who have done through a lot of schooling and still couldn't be the job the wanted, but I don't think it's most of the graduates. I did work with a teacher with a biomedical EE MS degree who couldn't get a job in his field, but his field is pretty specialized. And he had some odd mannerisms and a very arrogant attitude, which may have put off some employers. He is, however, making an excellent teacher (but not making much money.)
Where are you at and what are you paying per hr .
Our kids ain't having the number of kids like we had kids, and we didn't have the number of kids like out folks had.
No and we don't have all those factories and mills that made all our clothes,and household appliances, steel, shipyards etc.and all the thousands of cottage industries that went along with which employed millions of America workers.
You don't need kids if you can't make a decent wage to take care of them and there is not a decent future.
Also don't forget that our grandparents and my parents in my case needed larger families to work on their small farm.
Now one guy with a tractor can produce ten times what a family of ten with a mule could.
All of you who believe in the principles pf free market should tell the government to stay out of it because that what's wrong.
Let the market set the wages and the let the government quit passing laws that encourages and enables companies to invest in Red China and then floods what job market we have left over here with cheap labor.
They couldn't do a better job at attacking the wages of American workers if they tried [which is exactly what they are doing.
You don't really think they care about all those poor underprivileged foreign workers do you?
Hell, you are dealing with businessmen, the most greedy, cold bloodied, hard hearted, con men on the planet when it comes to a dollar.
They don't even care about the future of their fellow countrymen or their own grandchildren much less that of a bunch of foreigners.
They're just justifying selling out their own country and people to themselves but mostly to you and me and we gobble it up.
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