Posted on 02/02/2017 5:39:03 PM PST by AU72
While America's political future is steeped in uncertainty, there is no questioning what the US political establishment wants to do with the controversial H1B visa for highly-skilled workers.
Three legislative bills and a soon-to-be-expected executive order may look like overkill but growing momentum against the H1B gives the impression, at first glance, that the visa program in its present form is living on borrowed time. Especially noticeable about these efforts is the fact that they transcend party lines. see also Will Donald Trump's first 100 days as president include a cybercrisis?
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Republican Congressman Darrell Issa from California kicked things off earlier this year in the first week of January by introducing the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act (HR 170) bill, which aimed to constrict but not entirely eliminate an 18-year-old loophole in legislation that allowed US workers to be displaced by a visa-holding employee who has a master's degree or is paid at least $60,000. Issa's bill bumps the salary threshold to $100,000 a year but eliminates the master's degree exemption altogether, thereby somewhat disappointing those who were looking for more rigorous protection mechanisms for American tech workers.
A few weeks later, Republican Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Democrat Richard Durbin (Illinois) re-introduced a bill from previous years, called the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act, that they say will bump up enforcement mechanisms and modify wage requirements in service of both American workers and visa holders.
Specifically, the bill would prevent companies with more than 50 employees, of which at least half are H1B or L1 holders, from hiring additional H1B employees. The bill if passed would also empower the Department of Labour to actively patrol the visa landscape by being able to investigate and audit firms from a compliance standpoint and probe for abuse or fraud.
Their bill would also bring to end the system of computerized lottery with which the H1B visas are allocated, giving way to a "preference system" where foreign students enrolled in colleges and universities in the US get priority. So would advanced degree holders, those who managed to secure a high-paying job, and those with prized skills.
Then, a few days ago, California Congressman Zoe Lofgren -- known to be the 'Silicon Valley' politician -- introduced the High-Skilled Integrity and Fairness Act of 2017 in the US House of Representatives, which prioritises allocation of H1B visas based on a market-based system of allocation. This is designed to eliminate abuse of the system by preferencing those willing to pay 200 percent of the prevailing wage but above the minimum wage rate of $130,000 (more than double the $60,000 minimum rate established in 1989).
Playing to Silicon Valley galleries, Lofgren's bill would also seek to put aside 20 percent of H1B visas each year for startups, defined as firms with fewer than 50 employees.
All of these efforts come on the heels of several high-profile events where American IT workers were fired and then replaced by Indians. In one egregious case, which I wrote about here, Disney fired some 400 of their workers who were then replaced by their Indian counterparts from TCS and Infosys. The fired workers were also then made to train their replacements or lose their severance. Similar events have taken place around the country in the past few years to make this a burning issue, and President Trump, while on the campaign trail, vowed to correct what he said was a gross injustice against American tech workers. TRUMP'S EXECUTIVE ORDER
So, not to be outdone, President Trump is reportedly also looking to issue an executive order, due in 90 days and currently going through some final tinkering, which covers much of the same ground that the bills do. CNNMoney managed to get hold of a draft that gives an inkling of what to expect.
While the wording on the draft doesn't reveal too many details about possible changes in the H1B, it does apparently propose numerous changes to many of the other visas that are important to the tech community such as J1 (summer work travel), the Optional Practical Training (OPT, which allows international students to stay in the US after graduating), and the E2 program (an investor visa).
Also going under the presidential knife is the L1 visa, which allows a foreign worker to transfer from an office abroad to the same company's US branch. Now, an applicant will be subjected to site visits within six months by Homeland Security. Within two years, there will be mandatory on-site checking for all employment-related visa programs.
Yet, despite all this action with the H1B, observers are not convinced that Trump will allow the visa program to be severely mauled to favour American tech workers. Indian IT companies generate some $65 billion worth of business in the US and cutting off that spigot will mean the likes of GE, Boeing, and Cisco suddenly being unable to sell their turbines, planes, and routers in one of the world's fastest-growing economies.
It is going to be a fascinating balancing act that walks the tightrope between bombast and action while keeping the registers clinking on both sides of the globe.
This is all fine & good, but how’s about some tax cut action? Get the corporate rate down to 15% and do the 3 individual brackets at a 33% max... that is what we need to see.
Disgusting
AMERICA FIRST
That would severely hamper the H1B shops that work these guys 70 or more hours a week, and also any Americans that happen to stumble in there. People don't understand that this is severely cutting into the entry incentives for American STEM graduates.
I’m one of 4, soon to be 5 in MIS out in the factory in the woods.
I guess the new addition will be an American like the rest of us. Sometime in the next few days I’ll have a name and user account to create.
Hear, hear!
Kill H1B and send them all home. Best move ever!!!
All the gooberment needs to do is eliminate these visas & send the visa holders home on the first tramp steamer heading out of ‘Dodge.
But the Tech Billionaires need these to be Billionaires!
The H-1B count should be cut to ZERO.
No one needs them. NO one.
And then cut whatever transoceanic phone cable that connects us to India so that these people will stop offering to remove the "viruses" they just magically detected on my computer, or to lower my credit card rates (even though they couldn't tell me which of my cards they were calling about), or to present me with some awesome government grant from a vaguely-described agency.
American companies outsourced so many IT jobs to India, only to have those folks use their newfound skills to scam us endlessly, even learning how to spoof phone numbers so that they appear to be local. I'm so tired of that crap.
Try getting a job in a hospital. My daughter can only get part-time lab work due to Kenyans, ME and people from India. These are good jobs that being taken by H1Bs too.
You haven’t lived until you get calls from India regarding today’s “Urgent Requirement” for an IT position that pays minimum wage for a 3 month gig in Minot, North Dakota.
I’ve grown tired of being asked for my “visa status” for jobs within my own country. I’m also tired of having to interpret voicemail messages where the caller sounds like his mouth is stuffed full of martbles, offering the same job for the 150th time this month.
I’d be willing to visit the nearest Vedic Cultural Center to make an offering to Ganesh, just to get every last one of these jokers shipped home.
H1B guys at my Fortune 100 company, beside allowing the company to avoid paying a fair wage, find work that can be moved off-shore where workers are paid even less. This is going to be interesting to watch.
The visa has to be eliminated.
Any modification to the existing H1-B will have immigration attorneys looking for any possible way to exploit any unintended loopholes.
Yet another excellent reasons to cancel these foreign worker visas. They already abuse the program as it is.
Why “gun sights”? Going to shoot someone?
Write congress.
That is what they do, not something the President can do.
I worked with H-1B visa holders, they weren’t any better than anyone else that could’ve been hired off the street in most large cities.
And it degrades ST&E jobs suggesting that these are menial chores done by foreign workers while the valuable work is done by lawyers and MBAs.
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