Senator seeks expanded visas for foreign high-tech workers

Yahoo ^ | 05/16/12 | Richard Cowan

[DFG]

A leading Republican in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday unveiled legislation to raise the number of permanent visas for skilled technical workers from foreign countries, but prospects of passage this year could be clouded by election-year politics.

Senator John Cornyn, the senior Republican on a panel that oversees immigration, introduced a bill that would make an additional 55,000 visas available each year for graduates with master's and doctoral degrees who have studied at U.S. research institutions.

This is one of several immigration-related bills that could be kicked around this year in Congress and in the presidential campaign. But there is scant evidence so far of enough consensus to get anything enacted into law.

Other measures could focus on trying to help children of illegal immigrants who want to attend U.S. colleges or serve in the U.S. military.

[khelus]

Bravo!!!

[khelus]

cc: kabar

Your conclusions come from news and internet reports which may be perfectly valid. ...

Jedidah,
IF you had bothered to read all the links posted thus far on this thread, you would have realized the reports are all based on valid, real data, much of it from the government.

[RC51]

I sent my thoughts to this “REPUBLICAN” Senator, his mailbox was full. I hope you will too:

http://www.cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=ContactForm

[indthkr]

"costs the company $100,000 per hire because of all the legal expenses"

Sure, the instant transaction (the hiring) costs more, but in the long run, for the company, it more than pays for itself since the H1B's are more controllable (via sponsorship agreements), and probably less demanding of raises - I'm guessing break-even in <5 years.

In reality, it probably isn't even 5 years since the legal work is probably pipelined to law firms that donate heavily to political candidates that sponsor H1B legislation, and support other regulatory favors.

Crony capitalism at it's finest!

No wonder so many American kids are pursuing political science and law degrees instead of PhD's in quantum mechanics.

[Vigilanteman]

. . . it’s about jobs Americans CAN’T do, because they won’t get the education and skills necessary.

See post #31 to better understand the reasons why.

True story. One of my daughter's high school friends graduated from Carnegie-Mellon here in Pittsburgh with a degree in computer science. Good grades and one of the best in the country for that field. He married another classmate (high school sweetheart) who graduated with a health care degree good for employment just about anywhere.

Great kids, both smart and conservative. They both have family in the greater Pittsburgh area and wanted to stay-- not an unrealistic expectation given the so-so economy in our area and great marketable degrees in a city known for its information technology as much as for its health care.

Problem was, the young man couldn't get a job here even though his classmates from India with similar grades got multiple offers. So he spent two years working in a city on the opposite side of the state and coming home weekends to be with his wife.

Not long before he finally got a local job offer, there was a huge flap in this area because somebody had gotten into a hiring seminar near the CMU Campus and posted the video on You-Tube.

Theme of the seminar: How not to hire an American. It might even still be there. I'm dead serious.

The young man is finally working in Pittsburgh and living with his wife all week instead of weekends. Given the unfavorable publicity the You-Tube posting generated for IT companies in this area (the local news even picked it up), nobody can still say for sure if it got the young man a job. But the timing was awfully coincidental.

[svcw]

It goes both ways.
First he worked for HP, then Agilent, then Philips Lighting (had the same desk and phone number for thirty one years, the companies just changed around him) which is a Danish Company outsourcing their high tech jobs here, now works for a Japaneses company out sourcing its high tech jobs here.
The lower end tech jobs maybe over seas but the brain trusts are here, this is still where the research is going on.
You are correct however that may change in the future.

[RC51]

And one other thing.

Of 5 Chinese, 12 Indian’s and 2 Malaysians that work at my company only 1 (a 55 year old Chinese guy has gone all the way and gotten his citizenship). When I ask the others they all claim that they wish to retire back in their home country’s or plan to go back if the company fires them.

So out of 19 people that I deal with on a daily basis only 1 has pursued citizenship. I know for a fact that many of the others are sending more than half their paycheck back to their home countries.

SO even if your not an employee in a high-tech industry those are dollars not being spent at your car dealership, in your store or in your community.

The H1Bers appear like they are some of the most frugal people around. Imagine an engineer that is driving a 1989 Honda Accord, living in a 1 bedroom apartment. Never goes out to lunch w/ colleagues because yet again he brought his lunch just as he has done every day for the past 10 years. These H1Bers are NOT here for the American dream people, they are not here to integrate, they are not here to join the community. They are here for the cash and when the cash is gone so will they be.

[Vigilanteman]

Great observations! See my post #65.

[SharpRightTurn]

“Senator John Cornyn, the senior Republican on a panel that oversees immigration, introduced a bill that would make an additional 55,000 visas available each year for graduates with master’s and doctoral degrees who have studied at U.S. research institutions.”

These traitors are absolutely sickening.

Millions of Americans out of work and this jackwagon wants to import more immigrants.

I am not a Texas resident and can’t vote against Cornyn but will contribute to any conservative who runs against him in the primary.

[kabar]

I was stating a fact. What you are saying is the party line among Dems. They want to keep the immigrants coming in ever bigger numbers, legal and illegal. They call the illegal aliens undocumented workers. They support amnesty. They say that we need immigrants to do jobs Americans won't or can't do--just like you have been saying.

The U.S. adds one international migrant (net) every 36 seconds. Immigrants account for one in 8 U.S. residents, the highest level in more than 90 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. In a decade, it will be one in 7, the highest it has been in our history. And by 2050, one in 5 residents of the U.S. will be foreign-born.

Currently, 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year; 350,000 immigrants leave each year, resulting in a net immigration of 1.25 million. Since 1970, the U.S. population has increased from 203 million to 310 million, i.e., over 100 million. In the next 40 years, the population will increase by an additional 130 million to 440 million. Three-quarters of the increase in our population since 1970 and the projected increase will be the result of immigration. The U.S., the world’s third most populous nation, has the highest annual rate of population growth of any developed country in the world, i.e., 0.963% (2011 estimate,) principally due to immigration.

87 percent of the 1.2 million legal immigrants entering annually are minorities as defined by the U.S. Government and almost all of the illegal aliens are minorities. By 2019 half of the children 18 and under in the U.S. will be classified as minorities and by 2039, half of the residents of this country will be minorities. Generally, immigrants and minorities vote predominantly for the Democrat Party. Hence, Democrats view immigration as a never-ending source of voters that will make them the permanent majority party.

Since the 1965 Immigration Act, our pro-population growth immigration policies have fueled major demographic changes in a very short period of time. In 1970, non-Hispanic whites comprised 89 percent of the population; today they are 66 percent; and by 2039, they will be 50 percent. The Democrats, under the banner of multiculturalism and diversity, have forged a political coalition that depends on individuals coalescing around racial and ethnic identities rather than the issues. The continuing and increasing flow of minority immigrants, mostly poor and uneducated, provides a natural constituency for the Democrats, which see them as their principal source of political power.

[khelus]

Thanks.

It is beyond me how at this point in time people still believe myths such as ‘jobs americans can’t / won’t do’.

The video you mentioned is probably about Cohen and Grigsby.

Here’s some permanent links you might be interested in:
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/CohenAndGrigsbyPrevailingWage.txt

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/DOLSanctionsCohenAndGrigsby.txt

There still might be a video link that works in one of these article. [The video kept getting put up on the internet and being taken down.]
http://www.zazona.com/NewsArchive/2008-07-10%20DOL%20goes%20after%20Lawlogix%20and%20Cohen&Grigsby.htm

http://www.zazona.com/NewsArchive/2007-10-06%20Cohen%20And%20Grigsby%20video%20aftermath.htm

http://www.zazona.com/NewsArchive/2007-06-26%20Cohen&Grigsby%20Seminar%20videos%20back%20online.htm

http://www.zazona.com/NewsArchive/2007-06-20%20reactions%20to%20Cohen&Grigsby%20Seminar.htm

[kearnyirish2]

“Accountants are always in demand.”

Rather than have market forces drive wages up (as happened in tech), they’ll just import accountants to keep them down. There is no shortage of Americans with Accounting degrees; there is no reason to import them. It is done (again, as happened in tech) to keep wages down; I’ve seen it myself with going rates today. Next they’ll be whining that American students don’t go into accounting...

“At least, in these days of remote computing, some of the work can be done from home evenings and weekends.”

Work that can be done via remote computing is the first to go to Asia. When Americans balk at 60 hour workweeks as the norm, those jobs are gone (or all Asian at that point).

[kearnyirish2]

However you categorize the tech jobs, the fact is that many Americans trained in it are working as Wal-Mart greeters (if they are working at all) because of the importing of foreigners to take their jobs for less money.

Brain trusts alone won’t address our now-chronic unemployment.

[ItsOurTimeNow]

>>What are you paying them?<<

The same that we pay other engineers of similar education/work background.

A few of them have Masters Degrees, so can call for salaries that are higher than someone with just a Bachelors.