Free Republic

Officials in Canyon County, Idaho, say that illegal immigrants are costing their county millions of dollars in medical and welfare benefits — millions of dollars the county wants back from agricultural companies, officials say, that knowingly employed undocumented workers. In an unprecedented move, Canyon County is suing several local businesses under the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act. "It's an organized, orchestrated invasion, economic invasion of the United States," said Canyon County commissioner Robert Vasquez. “They're costing the county money in medical indigency welfare cases, and also in crime and other statistical data that we've compiled" The RICO Act...

U.S. Continues to Grant H-1B Visas Despite Record Unemployment To: National Desk Contact: Chris McManes of IEEE-USA, 202 785 0017 ext. 8356 or c.mcmanes@ieee.org WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 120,000 electrical engineers and computer scientists were unemployed in the fourth quarter of 2002. Despite this and other high levels of unemployment, 79,100 first-time H-1B visas were issued to non-U.S. citizens in fiscal year 2002, which ended Sept. 30. Add this to the 215,000 extensions and initial visas granted in exempt categories such as nonprofits, laboratories and colleges, and the number swells to...

BANGALORE: Just as one threat is defused, another bomb waits to explode. There’s some good news on the outsourcing/visa front in the US. But there’s some bad news also. As if the pressure on billings from a global slowdown was not enough, US politicians have now begun pick “stop outsourcing to India” as the cause of the season.The good news is that the landmark New Jersey (NJ) legislation, proposed by state senator Shirley Turner,  to ban outsourcing of government work to non-US destinations, was withdrawn last week after the Democratic Caucus voted against it. The bad news is that Rosa...

MUMBAI: The annual cap for H-1B visas will now be 65,000. This is a sharp drop from the earlier limit of 195,000 visas. The US plans to enforce this rule from October 1, 2003. The Indian IT industry has been lobbying hard to freeze H-1B visa limits at current levels. However, these efforts which had the support of some US corporations to retain H-1B visa limits have failed. (Will Europe be the next big hunting ground for Indian IT pros?) Indian IT professionals are among the largest users of H-1B visas, as US Big Tech shops big from this technical...

The blurring of borders through globalization has brought international competition to what once were local jobs. And though factory jobs lost to China and Mexico have garnered much of the attention, global competition also strikes at white-collar workers."People on the upper end have been pummeled by layoffs and unemployment," said Jeffrey Hynes, a Milwaukee lawyer who's president of the Wisconsin Employment Lawyers Association.The most recent visa data show that nearly 1 million foreign workers were in the United States as temporary workers and in-company transfers in fiscal 2002, more than quadruple the number in 1990.Specialty workers receiving H1-B visas rose...

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: With the number of H-1B (temporary skilled worker) visas scaled down to 65,000, attention has shifted to the L-1 (intra company transfer) visa. Lobbying by the Indian IT industry is expected to focus on preventing any changes in the norms for issuing L-1 visa. This follows the failure of lobbying efforts with the US Congress to prevent reduction in the number of H-1B visas.For Indian IT companies there are two concerns. One, L-1 visas are more extensively used by IT companies than H-1B visas. Second, there are more than five bills on the L-1 visa issue tabled and...

About 150,000 IT positions were lost in 2001 and 2002 SEPTEMBER 17, 2003 ( ) - DALLAS -- Unemployment for IT workers reached 6% this year, an "unprecedented" level for a profession that was once a sure path to a well-paying job, according to a new study that also found that foreign-born workers now account for a fifth of all IT employees in the U.S. The report also found that the percentage of laid-off foreign-born IT workers is slightly higher than for U.S.-born workers.The study, which was presented at a congressional forum today by the Washington-based nonprofit group Commission on...