[Starwind]

Two questions:
How many people in America work in the I/T field? 2.2 Million
How many H1B visa were issued this year? 30,000
This is a straw dog.

You have ignored the cummulative effect of the visas and seem to have cited only India's share of those issued visas. They are issued for six years each, and have been accumulating under increasing caps:

1) In the U.S. population of 2 million programmers, 94,000 are unemployed and 400,000-500,000 are H1B visa holders.

2) H1B visas granted in 2001 were 163,000 and in 2002 were 79,100 - against a cap of 195,000 (the cap was 65,000 in 1998 and 115,000 in 1999-2000). Unless Congress extends it, the limit will revert to 65,000 in 2004

3) There were 342,000 H1B visa extensions granted which aren't counted under the caps)

4) In addition the L-1 Visa Program totaled 57,200 in 2002.

(*Source: George F McClure of IEEE?s Workforce Policy Committee, quoting US Bureau of Labor Statistics)

[BushCountry]

Actually, I don't like the H1B visa program. However, now I am really confused by your agrument. 94,000 are unemployed, yet 400,000 - 500,000 are H1B visa holders. If we subtracted the 94,000 who are unemployed from the low number of 400,000 (which provide full employment for programmers including the completely incompetent ones. There is always a certain percentage), that means that 306,000 H1B visa would still be needed by American companies to do busy effectively. So, is the argument a reduction, which is happening, or an elimination?

[harpseal]

Thank you for your reasearch I am a little bit ill this morning and I am unable to get evey piece of research available. But as I said not one H1B visa should be allowed in the USA given the numbers of unemployed programemrs in the USA.