Feds want to stop IT immigrant programs

Due, to the current economic conditions, we should eliminate the Foreign Visa program and re-evaluate it
when there is economic prosperity.

I have nothing against foreign woekers, but these are bad times. How can H1-B visas be justified with a 15% IT unemployment rate.

There are plenty of takes on this subject but at the end of the day it comes down to the company that is doing the hiring. I worked for a large US company for 2 years that had many H1-B workers of which I was one. They came from many countries. My overriding feeling was that many of these were hired as cheap labor.
However there were many who were also hired for expertise. In my case, there is no way I would have been cheaper than a US citizen. I had years of experience in a particular area that this company required and they went to the trouble of hiring me for quite a bit of money. I would like to think I returned on their investment in me considerably.
As I see it, you don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Sure, youwant to eliminate cheap offshore labor which may not do a better (or in the end cheaper) job. But on the other hand it would be foolish to eliminate access to IT experts that may prove beneficial for bridging knowledge gaps.

Just my $0.02 worth

The whole reason for big business to lobby hard for the H1-B was to give themselves a tax break.

Imagine importing an alien labor force that work for less then your domestic labor. Then imagine that that labor force is made up of contractors not employees. Image how much you would save in payroll and SS taxes. Get the drift.

Convince Congress there is a high tech labor shortage and cover your IT needs with lower costing labor tax free. You would think the boys at Enron came up with this one.

The H1-B was just meant to give big corporations a break at the American workers expense. Not only were these foriegn people exploited as cheap labor and not paid their value, but in may cases the H1-B visas were used as tax dodges to avoid payroll taxes.

The IT worked got burned twice. Once on the job, then having to pick up the tax burden of corporate tax cheats!

If you are not an American and have NO desire at all of becoming one, you have no business being in our country to work.

We need to keep our jobs for our American's that are unemployed due to the market and stop giving them to foreigners.

Ifthe government needs to use some lame excuse citing national security, then so be it, but in my opinion it should have been done a long time ago.

Our country is greatly in need of support and help, and it is about time that we start to take care of number ONE instead of helping out everyone else and neglecting our own!!!

Mrafrohead

PROUD AMERICAN!!!!!

You are attempting to become a citizen and even at that you are limited in the level you can attain. Security clearances are stratified and many 1st generation immigrants hold secret and below. Some hold higher clearances because they possess some specialty needed. But then again it is compartmentalized.

The biggest concern I see is that easter eggs in code or knowledge of the architectures are at risk for exposure of vulnerabilities from someone who is not loyal to the United States - a spy.

However, the critieria to be a subversive or spy does not require that you are an immigrant. Walker was a Navy spy and not naturalized. Most do it for money, women, and cars. Few do it for principle.

This generalized "Us vs Them" bend that this argument has taken has failed to address the contributions of H1-b and immigration.

I believe that the rules need to be constructed and enforced to foster an environment where American workers are given the best chance and room is made for industry to avail itself of offshore labor if necessary.

If regulations don't make sense for this country, then they don't make sense at all. The sane option is to allow H1b and educational visas but only at a manageable level.

I ran across this article recently - the group where it came up has been unable to find a good rebuttal of any kind, let alone a serious point-by-point one!

I'm currently tending to 'The IT talent shortage is purely in the minds of Management andHuman Resources'.

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.real.html

Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage

Testimony to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee
Subcommittee on Immigration

Dr. Norman Matloff

Department ofComputer Science
University of California at Davis
Davis, CA 95616
(530) 752-1953
matloff@cs.ucdavis.edu
?1998, 1999, 2000, 2001
Presented April 21, 1998; updated February 4, 2002

There is no perfect solution to this problem.

Whenever you are talking about such large numbers of people you'll never, read N-E-V-E-R find a perfect solution to satisfy all.

Of all the many arguments mand throughout these posts I most agree, with the post written by Mr. James Linn.

He's right. North America wouldn't be what it is (both good and bad) if it weren't for immigration. As ugly as the concept is for some to take it -- immigration, dare I say, is essential.

Again, re-iterating views that were already expressed, I do think it currently is being poorly managed. And no, of course "just anyone" shouldn't be able to just easily immigrate - into America or any other country in the world. It's just logical and common sense.
You don't want to admit criminals fleeing prosecution (let alone criminals in general), or allow someone carrying a deadly disease into the country for example. There must be screening processes.

I've no problem with immigrants coming to this country as long as they play by the rules. They need to pay taxes let all of us who were born on American soil and lived here our whole lives as American citizens. They need to obey by the same laws and they shouldn't get special treatment in any federal programs and educational institutions.

Which I'm surprised no one brought to light - I'm not liking the special treatment like tax deferred status for example for foreigners who establish buisnesses here. I don't like that.

A more immediate and frustration problem of this country to me is our welfare system. If you want to get angry at a system - how about the EXTREMELY ABUSED welfare system.

That's more an issue than immigration.

There is no perfect solution to this problem.

Whenever you are talking about such large numbers of people you'll never, read N-E-V-E-R find a perfect solution to satisfy all.

Of all the many arguments mand throughout these posts I most agree, with the post written by Mr. James Linn.

He's right. North America wouldn't be what it is (both good and bad) if it weren't for immigration. As ugly as the concept is for some to take it -- immigration, dare I say, is essential.

Again, re-iterating views that were already expressed, I do think it currently is being poorly managed. And no, of course "just anyone" shouldn't be able to just easily immigrate - into America or any other country in the world. It's just logical and common sense.
You don't want to admit criminals fleeing prosecution (let alone criminals in general), or allow someone carrying a deadly disease into the country for example. There must be screening processes.

I've no problem with immigrants coming to this country as long as they play by the rules. They need to pay taxes let all of us who were born on American soil and lived here our whole lives as American citizens. They need to obey by the same laws and they shouldn't get special treatment in any federal programs and educational institutions.

Which I'm surprised no one brought to light - I'm not liking the special treatment like tax deferred status for example for foreigners who establish buisnesses here. I don't like that.

A more immediate and frustration problem of this country to me is our welfare system. If you want to get angry at a system - how about the EXTREMELY ABUSED welfare system.

That's more an issue than immigration.

I am against Americans working abroad. If we go somewhere for a week or two to make some kind of adjustment to something that we made or are offering support that is one thing. But to pack up and move out of your homeland is abandonment.

If youdon't like this country enough to work in it and live in it, then you shouldn't call yourself an American!!!

This falls along the line with me down to where you see all of these people driving around with signs on their cars that say so and so pride, this pride and that pride. What ever happened to American pride??? What is so wrong with being proud of what you are when you're here??? An American!!! People are always knocking it that live here, yet they won't go anywhere else. It's absolutely ridiculous.

As you can tell, this is a VERY deeply rooted thing with me. I believe in America down to my bones and I have a hard time when I hear of our people having a hard time, while we are helping out every one else and their grandma's. But then ignoring our own people.

So I hope that this helps to explain my opinion a little better.

Mrafrohead

In the 21st century when we are talking about boundry less globe why then restriction on human movement.

If we can talk about less restrictions on business movements from one part of world to another part why shouldn't people be allowed to move freely, i dream of a place wherein people can move freely without needing visas for work, americans can world world wide and rest of world can work in america.

is this not a good idea ??

If MCDonalds, Ford, Coke & Pepsi want to open shops in other countries that is diversification. why can't we apply the same to human capital, why don't we make movement of human unrestricted, why are we thinking as american's, indians, britons and others, we are human beings.

as in the business labor market should also have buzzword SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

hi pack,
do u think a globe without boundries would be a great idea, i think you talked about equality, let me know from you why is that US $ is more stronger than other countries, have you ever thought about that, what have people on the other side of world have done wrong to get such a depreciated currency remember it is the exchange rate which is determinal.

y don't we have a global currency, with a global goverance, wherein we target common enemy that is illetracy, unemployment and terrorrism.

In my definition of racism, it includes stereo-typing and jumping to conclusions at a person without knowing all the background.
No, in every case of my being 'tossed off' as you describe it, I was the LAST to go, there's not much I can do when companies such as SPC and Lotus Development close down offices or move them across the globe!
As for my personality, I might not be perfect but I've never once had a complaint at work about my attitude or friendliness.
As for my work, I've had dozens of performance awards that show I'm hard working.
As for my skills, do you really think a company would pay thousands of dollars to relocate me into another country if I wasn't skilled enough.
And incidently, the number of jobs I've had? That willbe 9 (I left ONE of my own choice, "Northamber", because of the dreadful way they treated ALL their staff).
Sorry Leftyf, but you're miles off base in summing me up!

what happened on 9/11 is one of the biggest crimes against humanity and they are punished for daring to do that, isn't it right...

now the basic question is are we going to be influenced by bunch of people determined to make life hell for all. ifwe do so indeed they have succeeded in their mission, because they belong to closed society and try to impose their rules on others and they want to make world a place where people don't have freedom to move, do work, be friends to other.

are we not penalising a whole lot for the acts of few individuals who are as much enemy of all us non americans as they are for americans.

we need to have more stringent checks for safeguard but that doesn't mean close your doors to whole world, remember they are out to do the same and we are helping them to achieve it.........

In a company I worked at last year, we had an
H1-B engineer in our group, other groups had many more H1-Bs. Anyway this H1-B in our group was being paid US$400 to $600 a week less than the American workers.

Now if you multiply that by say 100 you can see why companies prefer to hire H1-Bs.

And a question that comes to mind is, where do these workers aquire all the claimed experience. They come from third world countries that don't have the technology they claim to have worked with.

About two years ago the American embassy in India complained that they were unable to varify 55% of the education and experience claimed by the H1-B applicants. A congressman queried the US Dept of Labor on this but his questions went unanswered.

Kudos for Eastman-Kodak. They have said they will not hire any H1-Bs because there are more than enough Americans that can be trained for the available jobs. And that includes older American workers.

I just came from a place where there were only 50 US citizens. All the other 300 or so were from Madras. I worked there for nearly a year.

There was never any attempt at to comply with the requirements of job postings. I know for a fact that one of the positions was funded at $90K and the H1B was only getting 35K. (We split a house.)

I don't fault the people. I fault the company for abusing the system. When the big lay off came, non-H1B's were the first to go. I was there when it occured. (Someone had to retrieve the computers, secure the email, etc).

leftyf

Road-Dog mentioned that many H1-B worker work for DOD in sensitive positions.

What is the definition of sensitive?

Non-citizens are not granted U.S. security clearances except in the very rarest of circumstances or if they have high level political connections like in the Clinton administration.

I was on a contract assignment in Rockford, IL at a company that did have some military contracts and the non-citizen workers were told to stay out of the areas where the military work was done.

However the non-citizen workers were not monitored and they wandered everywhere. If you mentioned it to management you were then on the short list for cut-backs. I did not say anything about it but those that did were soon gone. Which said tome shut up because nothing will be done about the real problem.

Management pretended as if they had a monitored program, ie, an American had to be in the area whenever the non-citizens were working. What a farce. The non-citizen workers would disappear for hours on end and no one ever knew where they were.

When companies that have DOD contracts employee non-citizen workers the security policies are just paper policies.
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