Posted on 07/13/2003 8:47:36 AM PDT by sarcasm
WASHINGTON: The H1-B visa on the chopping block again. A prominent anti- immigration lawmaker has introduced in the US Congress, a Bill that seeks to abolish the visa category that facilitates a large number of skilled Indian professionals take up jobs in the United States.
The move is certain to be opposed by US high-tech companies and many other lawmakers considering that H1-B visa cap is slated to brought down from its peak of nearly 200,000 per year in the year 2000 to its original level of 65,000.
But even that is too much for Congressman Tom Tancredo. Often described as a onetrick pony and a single-issue Congressman, Tancredo has campaigned relentlessly against both illegal and legal
immigration. But as chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus
now, his 15-line Bill aimed at eliminating all visas under H1-B category introduced
this week goes further than he has done before at time when job loss in the United States has roused sentiments against white collar immigration.
The move, if it comes to fruition, will particularly hurt Indian business interests, which used to snag about 50 per cent of all H1-B visas before the current economic downturn in the US and job migration to India brought down the number. The latest report from India’s National Association of Software and Service Companies Nasscom) says India accounted for 77,000 H1-B visas in 2001 but only 33,000 in 2002, and the total is expected drop to 30,000 this year.
More recently, the US has been unable to issue even the reduced quota of H1-B visas despite attempts at farming it out to other non-technical professionals like teachers and nurses.
But immigration of any sort is anathema Tancredo, who last month incurred the wrath of the White House by suggesting that if there was another terrorist attack on the United States, and it was done by someone who had entered the country illegally, ‘‘then the blood of the people that are killed will be on our hands and the president’s.’’
Tancredo’s bill has been spurred by a campaign by US tech workers, who are losing jobs in increasing numbers through a combination of immigration, outsourcing and advancement of technical skills outside US, wage differentials and other factors.
There is enough truth in the conventional account to give it a surface plausibility.
Certainly America offers a degree of mobility and opportunity unavailable elsewhere, even in Europe. Only in the US could Pierre Omidyar, whose ancestry is Iranian and who grew up in France, have started a company like eBay. Only in the US could Vinod Khosla, the son of an Indian Army officer, become a shaper of the technology industry and a billionaire to boot.
In addition to providing unprecedented social mobility and opportunity, America gives a better life to the ordinary guy than does any other country. Let's be honest: Rich people live well everywhere. America's greatness is that it has extended the benefits of affluence, traditionally available to the very few, to a large segment of society. We live in a nation where "poor" people have TV sets and microwave ovens, where construction workers cheerfully spend $4 on a nonfat latte, where maids drive very nice cars, where plumbers take their families on vacation to St. Kitts.
Recently I asked an acquaintance in Bombay why he has been trying so hard to relocate to America. He replied, "I really want to move to a country where the poor people are fat."
The typical immigrant, who is used to the dilapidated infrastructure, mind-numbing inefficiency, and multilayered corruption of third-world countries, arrives in the US to discover, to his wonder and delight, that everything works: Roads are clean and paper-smooth, highway signs clear and accurate; public toilets function properly; when you pick up the telephone you get a dial tone; you can even buy things from the store and then take them back.
The American supermarket is a thing to behold: endless aisles of every imaginable product, many types of cereal, 50 flavors of ice cream. The place is full of unappreciated inventions: quilted toilet paper, fabric softener, cordless phones, disposable diapers, and roll-on luggage.
So, yes, in material terms, America offers the newcomer a better life. Still, the material allure of America does not capture the deepest source of its appeal.
Recently I asked myself how my life would have been different if I had not come to America. I was raised in a middle-class family in India. I didn't have luxuries, but I didn't lack necessities. Materially, my life is better in the US, but it is not a fundamental difference. My life has changed far more dramatically in other ways.
Had I remained in India, I would probably live my entire existence within a five-mile radius of where I was born. I would undoubtedly have married a woman of my identical religious and socioeconomic background, possibly someone selected by my parents. I would face relentless pressure to become an engineer or a doctor. My socialization would have been entirely within my own ethnic community. I would have a whole set of opinions that could be predicted in advance. In sum, my destiny would, to a large degree, have been given to me.
By coming to America, I've seen my life freed of these confines. At Dartmouth College, I became interested in literature and switched my major to the humanities. Soon, I developed a fascination with politics, and resolved to become a writer, which is something you can do in America, and which is not easy to do in India. I married a woman of English, Scots-Irish, French, and German ancestry. Eventually, I found myself working in the White House, even though I wasn't an American citizen. I can't imagine any other country allowing a noncitizen to work in its inner citadel of government.
In most of the world, even today, identity and fate are largely handed to you. This is not to say that you have no choice, but it is choice within given parameters. In America, by contrast, you get to write the script of your own life. What to be, where to live, whom to love, whom to marry, what to believe, what religion to practice - these are all decisions that, in America, we make for ourselves. Here, we're architects of our own destiny.
"Self determination" is the incredibly powerful idea that is behind the worldwide appeal of the US. Young people throughout the world find irresistible the prospect of being in the driver's seat of their own lives. So, too, the immigrant discovers that America permits him to break free of the constraints that have held him captive, so that the future becomes a landscape of his own choosing.
The phrase that captures this unique aspect of America is the "pursuit of happiness."
Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul analyzes that concept this way: "It is an elastic idea; it fits all men. It implies a certain kind of society, a certain kind of awakened spirit. So much is contained in it: the idea of the individual, responsibility, choice, the life of the intellect, the idea of vocation and perfectibility and achievement. It is an immense human idea. It cannot be reduced to a fixed system. It cannot generate fanaticism. But it is known to exist, and because of that, other more rigid systems in the end blow away."
Dinesh D'Souza is the author of 'What's So Great About America.' He is the Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.
So they abolish the H-1B. That leaves L-1 visas untouched, and the direct offshoring of jobs to remote sites overseas will continue unabated.
As a senior Merrill Lynch VP said in a Wall Street Journal article some months ago, "If it can be done in front of a computer screen, it can be done in India."
Becuase it is only immigration and it would get too many fish in the net.
I know a young man 33 years old, who has ALREADY served 4 years in the US Army..... back duing GULF WAR I and after. He came home went to college, got a degree ( with honors), worked in IT, was forced to train his foreign( INDIAN and PAKI) replacements, he got laid-off, the Pakis and Indians keep right on working at his former place of employment at his former job and he cannot... after almost a year find another IT job anyplace in the USA.
Just too much completion from H1B/L1 WORKERS.
Well, our patriotic American needs a job, a real job not the little $7-9 per hour jobs he has had of late. HE HAS A COLLEGE LOAN TO REPAY!!!
So, the our Patriot, is going back into the Army.
Let me tell you something, bud.... I do not think a guy should have to do two terms in the US Army, so that some slimely foreigners can have his job!
Allies my A__!! Hey, man... I did NOT see ONE SINGLE INDIAN TROOP helping our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines in the recent IRAQ affair.
Who the heck needs allies like that?
They are not allies they are PARASITES!! Just like the FRENCH!
A few years back Mrs. harpseal and I took a trip via boat to New York Harbor and went past the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The late Mrs. Harpseal commented "You know both my mother's parents came to the USA from Poland not speaking a word of English. They came through Ellis Island and they adapted to the culture. So why does my phone bill come in English and Spanish?"
Or, is he one of those BRAINY folks who are just toooooo smart (or slimey) like klintoon, to do military service and risk life and limb for this country?
Most likely he is one who expects to be served BY THIS COUNTRY and by those who SERVED WITH DIGINITY AND HONOR IN ITS MILITARY AND PERHAPS PAID THE ULTIMATE PRICE.
He gets the gravy.... somebody already paid for.
THAT IS ROTTEN!
Please read my post #48.... true story... Young man from my Church.
I have no objections to Indian professionals coming over AS PERMANENT IMMIGRANTS seeking to resettle here in the US with their families. H1B is indentured servitude (which is why US companies like them so much). The H1B's have to work whatever hours their managers set for them, put up with whatever demands are made, or they get sent back to India. They can't easily switch companies. They do not pose a threat to their managers of taking over the manager's job. Of course managers here love them
I not I have a neighbor who is in IT who is of Indian ancerstry. His parents came here when he was young. His wife is from India and he shares my concerns on all this. It is not about prejudice it is about the economic destruction of the USA and about establishing a new class of lords here.
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