"A policy that limits too many smart people coming to the United States is questionable." "I'd certainly get rid of the H-1B visa caps." ^[22]

Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, 2005 in a conversation with Tilghman, president of Princeton University, April 28, 2005

"It's no contest. We're in the business to make a buck. American labor can't compete."

Bob Galvin, CEO of Motorola, 1987 ^[21]

"I think a very important part of the productivity gains in the past decade were associated with our open immigration policy,"

Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke said recently.
Council on Foreign Relations, January 19, 2005

"(Not all of the) unemployed are capable of doing the jobs for which H-1Bs are being hired. Workers are not fungible that way," Brown said. "Sometimes the best person for the job just happens to be born elsewhere."

Theresa Brown, immigration policy director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Reuters, Jan 27, 2005

Some argue that H-1B workers displace American workers and lower American workers’ wages and working conditions in certain job sectors. It is hard to displace U.S. workers when you don’t have any U.S. workers to choose from.

Elizabeth C. Dickson
Director of Immigration Services
Ingersoll-Rand Company
Senate Judiciary Testimony, "Examining the Importance of the H-1B Visa to the American Economy. " September 16, 2003

Unlike the permanent and temporary labor certification programs, Congress did not include a requirement for a labor market test, or a no-layoff provision, under the H-1B program. Therefore, the Department does not have any information concerning employers' efforts to recruit U.S. workers for the position, nor are employers required to provide such information.

8/20/2002
Letter From Dale Ziegler
Chief, Division of Foreign Labor Certifications
Department of Labor

"There are a lot of myths that these guys [H-2B visa holders] are replacing American workers." 
Maria P. Candler, vice president for operations of the Williamsburg Colonial Village.

"It does [H-2B] allow employers to evade the basic rules of the capitalist market Typically, if you have a hard time finding workers, you have to offer better wages and working conditions to attract them. Employers in the H-2B program don't do that."
Mary Bauer, legal director of the Virginia Justice Center for Farm and Immigrant Workers in Charlottesville

Companies here don't want to pay high salaries to American workers, so they recruit Hispanics who will work hard for less pay. The wages, though, are still much greater than in Mexico."
Elizalde-Luna, an H-2B

"Firm relies on foreigners for its work force", by Pamela Stallsmith, Richmond Times Dispatch 5/11/2003

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, said, "Long term, the best solution is to grow our own technology work force, but it's going to take several years for us to generate the number of computer people we need ... In the meantime, we need the H-1B program." 

"High-tech hardships", San Antonio Express, by Sanford Nowlin, May 4, 2003

Unemployed programmers and labor union officials in Ohio contended that public money should not be used to hire foreign labor for state contracts when a large number of qualified Americans are looking for work. Ohio's Director of Department of Job & Family Services, Tom Hayes replied, "We here believe in the American dream . . . but we can't say that we have to hire people who are American citizens."^[20]

Belkis Muldoon, director of global immigration services for Motorola, says many of its H-1B employees are recruited out of U.S. colleges, then brought on staff with a kind of temporary visa [J-1] that must be converted to an H-1B. ^[16]

Judy Olian, Dean of Penn State University's Smeal College of Business, wrote a column for the Albuquerque Tribune that warns against the temptation to protect domestic workers from visa limits. She went on to say that "Even with consistent inflow of immigrants, we will suffer severe labor shortages by 2010, especially among technical professionals." ^[17]

Patrick P. Gelsinger, the chief technology officer of Intel, told the New York Times that he isn't concerned about the security risks of H-1Bs or outsourcing because because the cost of one engineer in the United States would pay for the services of three Indians, four Chinese or five Russians. ^[15]

"If foreign countries specialize in high-skilled areas where we have an advantage, we could be worse off," says Harvard University economist Robert Z. Lawrence on the, a prominent free-trade advocate. "I still have faith that globalization will make us better off, but it's no more than faith."

Sivaramakichenane Somasegar, Microsoft's vice-president for Windows engineering in reference to moving jobs to India said. "But if I can save a dollar, hallelujah." ^[14]

"The American economy absolutely needs immigrants. I realize some workers have been hurt by this, and some people get very angry when I say this, but our economy has become more dependent on immigrant labor than at any time in the last 100 years."^[13]

Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University labor market center

``There is no system of checks. It is completely a complaint-driven process and it's very difficult often to bring a viable legal case against employers.''^[12]

 B. Lindsay Lowell, director of research at the Pew Hispanic Center

"We need a debate as a country about how much we depend on temporary foreign workers. They are such an integral part of our economy some people can't imagine living without them." ^[11]

-- Deborah Meyers, an analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute

“Make no mistake: U.S. employers in many industries are desperate for Mexican and other foreign labor.” ^[9]

-- Linda Chavez, Secretary of Labor

There is no doubt that the program is a benefit to their employers, enabling them to get workers at a lower wage and to that extent is a subsidy.  ^[8]

January 2000 - "Aggregative demand is putting very significant pressures on an ever-decreasing available supply of unemployed labor," Greenspan said. "The one obvious means that one can use to offset that is expanding the number of people we allow in." 

February 2000 - Imbalances in the labor markets perhaps may have even more serious implications for inflation pressures. While the pool of officially unemployed and those otherwise willing to work may continue to shrink, as it has persistently over the past seven years, there is an effective limit to new hiring, unless immigration is uncapped. At some point in the continuous reduction in the number of available workers willing to take jobs, short of the repeal of the law of supply and demand, wage increases must rise above even impressive gains in productivity. This would intensify inflationary pressures or squeeze profit margins, with either outcome capable of bringing our growing prosperity to an end. ^[18]

Immigration Attorney Edward Litwin said, "If their job [H-1B] is terminated and they're laid off, according to the Immigration Service they are immediately out of status and are supposed to leave the United States". Litwin says U.S. law is not specific about when they have to leave the country, and there's virtually no enforcement. So many stay as long as they can, hope to find work, and then try to get new H1Bs. And yes, they do compete against Americans for work, but Litwin says that's good for business.  ^[7]

Tino Serrano, spokesman for the Department of Labor, in reference to complaints that Sun Microsystems laid off American citizens while keeping their H-1Bs said that "once the foreigners are hired, employers cannot choose to dismiss them because of their immigration status." ^[6]

William Yates of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) stated that the INS did a study of 3,247 cases referred to an American Consulate in India. He said that "they were unable to verify the authenticity of close to 45% of the claims made on the petitions. Twenty-one percent of the work experience claims made to the INS were confirmed to be fraudulent in this investigation."^[3]

"It's not necessarily the skilled worker, it's the harder worker. The employer is getting more productivity and cheaper labor. Because many H-1B applicants are willing to do whatever it takes to get into the country, they will work day and night and they won't complain. They're willing to compromise some of their salaries. They're a special breed."

Fadi Bishara, president and founder of techVenture
H-1B Visas a Boon to Local Talent Wired News 4/26/2001

PeopleSupport CEO Abby Hossein cites the benefits of having a "team" in the Phillippines and said that programmers in Manila are paid 3 times less than their US counterparts. He said it's more than a source of cheap labor, "we're working in an international labor pool".

Chicago Sun-Times Tech Watch by Bob Weinstein 4/8/2001

President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Bob McTeer wrote that "we should raise the H1-B limit further to at least 200,000 and make the increase permanent. The U.S. cannot afford to let a lack of workers take the steam out of its remarkable economic expansion."

Angela Kupps, human resource director at E-Tek Dynamics, Inc., (San Jose, CA) spoke at the meeting about E-Tek's experiences finding qualified workers. She said the company grew from 1000 to 3000 employees in one year, adding 200 engineers. The average time to fill a vacant position was three to four months; due to the scarcity of qualified U.S. workers, 75 percent of the new employees are Asian with more than 100 sponsored on H1B visas (which allow certain foreign professionals to work in the U.S. for up to six years). 

There are now roughly 420,000 H1B immigrants in the United States, according to Rick Swartz, president of Swartz & Associates Inc., a political consulting company. Whats more, there are no politically powerful folks pushing for a reform of the system. There is no consensus among high-tech companies to push for it, says Swartz. Some companies get it, he says, while he believes that other companies may want to keep the program as is in order to keep their foreign employees under their thumb.

...There are two good things about H-1Bs. First, they allow you to travel the globe while you identify technical professionals who want to work in the United States. Second, the H-1B is valid only for the employer who arranges it. If you bring a technical  professional into the country and he or she decides to jump ship, its likely that the ship he or she will have to jump on is the one thats going back to the home country. If the person wants to come back, he or she has to start the immigration process all over again. As a result, most H-1B visa holders demonstrate remarkable loyalty. 

ME CAVEMAN

"Yet the cavemen who fear outsiders cry out against raising the H1-B limit to 200,000."

Jay Whitehead is the CEO of EmployeeService.com

Said Stahl in her introduction, "At a time when thousands of American programmers are having a tough time finding work, some of America's biggest companies are hiring cut-rate, foreign programmers to take their jobs."

Stahl inquired about foreign programmers being "the best and the brightest," and former Immigration and Naturalization Service official Demetrious Papademtetriou said, "These are basically run of the mill people with some skills."

Legal Rejection of U.S. Workers

When employers feel the need to legalize aliens, it may be due to a shortage of suitable U.S. workers, but even in a depressed economy, Employers who favor aliens have an arsenal of legal means to reject all U.S. workers who apply. 

Immigration Lawyer
Joel Stewart, Esq. 

BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION 
The H-1B program and its expansions have proven to be the worst possible scenario for U.S. workers. As employers voraciously consumed 115,000 visas by the end of June of this year, no regulations enforcing labor protections for both U.S. and foreign workers, either interim or final, have been promulgated by the Department of Labor (DOL). Not one U.S. worker has been afforded the minimal labor protections of the additional employer attestations imposed by The American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998 because DOL has yet to publish regulations governing their implementation, in either interim or final form. Attention and resources are diverted from the true solutions to a shortage skills, training programs, better educational programs, fair recruitment and diligent enforcement of strong labor laws, to a sham debate for a phony solution to an alleged shortage that is perpetuated by the behavior of an industry.

Alan Greenspan

Large and small corporations have aggressively lobbied (read bribed) Congress for access to inexpensive immigrants since the 1980s. At first, it was for technical workers like myself through programs like the H-1B visa. Yet another proposal to expand the H-1B has just been introduced by Texas Senator Gramm. Every day, more and more middle - aged Americans are being displaced.  I have also learned first hand of the frustrations of being unable to pay for "ordinary" things like health care or a replacement for my 1983 car. On the other hand, I see many younger people (who appear to be non - native) driving shiny new trucks in my neighborhood.

Gene A. Nelson, Ph.D.
A BrainSaver in Dallas, Texas  2/6/00

Paul Donnelly 
IEEE-USA and an aide to the principal author of the Immigration Act of 1990, former Rep. Bruce Morrison (D-Conn) and contributer to the Immigration Reform Coalition

Computerworld 11/29/99

"Yet the regulations [H-1B] are a joke, neither protecting U.S. workers nor promoting skilled immigration. We have a system run by bureaucrats for the benefit of lawyers." Donnelly asked the question, "Why not use market forces instead?". An employer willing to make a legally binding statement that it isn't undercutting U.S. workers should be able to sponsor a new hire for a green card by simply making a substantial private-sector investment in educating and training U.S. workers ...   -- thus importing skilled immigrants and improving the U.S. workforce.

Dr. Norman Matloff  
Department of Computer Science
University of California at Davis
author of     "Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage"        

 There is indeed salary exploitation in many cases, but that is not the central issue. THE CENTRAL ISSUE IS AGE DISCRIMINATION. EVEN IF EMPLOYERS WERE TO GIVE FULL SALARY PARITY TO H-1BS, THEY STILL WOULD PREFER TO HIRE YOUNG H-1BS OVER OLDER U.S. CITIZENS AND PERMANENT RESIDENTS. Employers would still prefer hiring a 25-year-old H-1B to a 45-year-old American, even if they pay the 25-year-old H-1B the same as 25-year-old Americans.

Many [companies] really love having indentured servants [H-1Bs]. They don't just love the chance to exploit H-1Bs in terms of salary; EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN SALARY IS THE FREEDOM FROM FEAR THAT THE H-1B WILL SUDDENLY LEAVE FOR ANOTHER EMPLOYER, CAUSING A MAJOR DISRUPTION TO THE CURRRENT EMPLOYER'S PROJECT, AND MAYBE EVEN TAKING THE CURRENT EMPLOYER'S TRADE SECRETS TO ANOTHER COMPANY. Many people don't realize just how powerful an attraction this is to employers of H-1Bs.

ANY INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF FOREIGN-NATIONAL WORK VISAS WILL SIMPLY EXACERBATE THE AGE DISCRIMINATION PROBLEMS.

U.S. Department of Labor
Office of Inspector General Office of Audit
Final Report Report Number: 06-96-002-03-321
Date Issued: 1/24/97

The Department of Labor's Foreign Labor Certification Programs: The System Is Broken and Needs To Be Fixed

In our opinion, not all types of jobs being filled by H-1B aliens necessarily represent jobs that would enhance U.S. employers' abilities to compete in a global economy. While there is no requirement that there be a labor shortage in the occupation for which employers file LCAs, the H-1B program is being used to staff such positions as: accountants, piano instructors and accompanists, primary school teachers, physicians, and assistant professors and professors. While the aliens who filled these positions may have baccalaureate degrees, or equivalent, we question whether the jobs meet the full definition of specialty occupation.

Charles C. Masten
Inspector General
H-1B Labor Condition Application (LCA) program.

Audit findings in a recently issued OIG report found that both programs fail to adequately protect American jobs or wages, as intended by Congress. The audit discovered that the Department's role amounts to little more than a paper shuffle for the PLC program and a "rubber stamping" for LCA program applications.

The PLC program was established by Congress to exclude aliens from being granted legal status for employment when there are qualified, willing U.S. workers available for jobs. However, our audit found that 74 percent of the applicants were already working for a U.S. employer at the time of their application for labor certification. Moreover, 99 percent of the aliens with approved certifications were already in the U.S. at the time that the applications were made. The OIG also found that the labor market test, which is designed to ensure that there are no qualified U.S. workers available to fill the positions for which the application has been filed, is perfunctory at best. The LCA program was designed by Congress to provide American businesses with timely access to the "best and brightest" employees in the international labor market to meet urgent, but generally temporary, business needs while protecting U.S. workers' wage levels. Our audit found that 75 percent of the aliens worked for employers who failed to adequately document that the wages on the labor condition application were in fact the proper wages. In addition, out of those employees whose wages could be determined, 19 percent were being paid below the prevailing wages specially required by the program. Despite annual expenditures of approximately $50 million on DOL's foreign labor certification programs, the OIG found that DOL's role in the PLC and LCA programs did little to add value to the process of protecting U.S. workers' jobs and wages.

Harris N. Miller
President Information Technology Association Of America

April 21, 1998 Before The  House Subcommittee On Immigration

Many Americans do not have the background, education or skills to qualify for these [IT] assignments.

So employers are forced to bid up the price of critical human resources, not only paying inflated salaries but also using signing bonuses and other cash inducements, life-style accommodations such as telecommuting and child care credits, and a rich menu of insurance, vacation, tuition reimbursement and related perks.

In the absence of further legislative action in the next two years, the [H-1B] cap reverts to 65,000 in 2004. The effort that will be necessary to get the cap increased again will be enormous, especially if US unemployment increases from its current level of slightly over four per cent, which seems likely. The immigration opponents are out to get me, and many of you.  Harris Miller in Bangolore March 15, 2001^[10]

Other H-1B workers are indispensable because of their unique experience with overseas conditions and markets. Those particular international professionals provide an asset that cannot be replaced by U.S. workers no matter how much extra training they receive. ^[19]

\Gary Foster FOR Bill Belt
Excerpt from Letter from Regional Administrator
US Dept of Labor
Employment Standards Administration

There is nothing in the H-1B provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act which requires an employer to make any effort to hire domestic workers or United States citizens before they can be authorized to employee nonimmigrant aliens under the Act. The "protection" offered by Item 8(b) on Form ETA-9035, "Labor Condition Application for H-1B Nonimmigrant" is for "similarly employed" workers, not for individuals seeking employment".

Robert Reich
Secretary of Labor 1995

The H-1B program "has become a major means of circumventing the costs of paying skilled American workers or the costs of training them."

Robert Schaerfl
Director of US Employment Services (Feb 18, 1994)

".... the employer has no responsibility to determine if there are qualified US workers available before hiring an alien. The employer is required to attest on the LCA that the H-1b is being paid the higher of the actual establishment wage or the prevailing wage in the area....." "the employer must make certain documentation available for public examination by interested parties."

"Congress did not include a requirement for a labor market test, or a no-layoff provision, under the H-1B program. Unfortunately, without these two provisions in the statute, there is potential that this program could adversely affect job opportunities for U.S. workers employed or seeking employment, particularly those in highly skilled occupations."

Companies don't have to prove need to hire an H-1B or to give preference to American workers, contrary to popular opinion!!! The full text version of Schaerfl's letter is available in the Library.
ShameH-1B

"anybody that competes with slaves becomes a slave"

Player Piano, 1952

"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power"

- Benito Mussolini

Remember, it's spelled H-1B, not H1B