Too bad the people who lost their food stamps due to the Sequester haven’t got a lobby. Or the parents of the children who lost their Head Start or the people who depend on Meals on Wheels. Too bad they can’t hire lobbyists to represent them. If they were wealthy enough to complain about important issues like lines at airports, somehow we’d find the money.
Too bad the unemployed and under-employed don’t have a lobby. They’d be in Washington protesting the increased number of non-immigrant visas for skilled workers stuck into the current immigration bill. These jobs will pay less, and will allow the families these workers bring with them to get jobs here too. The tech industry lobbied for them as well as lobbyists from other countries. Anyone who has advertised a job lately knows that there are plenty of unemployed highly skilled workers available here.
Under this same Immigration Bill, according to President Obama’s speech this morning, it will take undocumented immigrants thirteen years to become citizens after meeting many stipulations. I’m sure many will be happy to just be able to work here legally without citizenship.
I first read about this increase in H-1B visas in the NY Times. I haven’t seen any television coverage or discussion of this. Now Senator Jeff Sessions (R) Alabama is questioning all the new visas for guest workers, including H-1B, in this bill and it's effects on the unemployed.
This is a bill for the high tech lobbyists and the lobbyists from Korea, Ireland
Links to articles about these imports of skilled workers.
How lobbyists from Ireland, Korea, and Poland met with Congress, the President, and Vice President and other countries
Tucked in Immigration Bill, Special Deals for Some, Some countries lobby for more in race for visas
“This could turn into a stealth immigration policy,” said Ronil Hira, a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology who studies the immigration system. “Every country is going to try to negotiate its own carve-out.”
Indeed, lawmakers are already pushing to grant special benefits to other places, including Tibet, Hong Kong and parts of Africa.
Tech Industry Pushes to Amend Immigration Bill
The industry achieved its main goals in the draft Senate bill: an easing of the green card process and an expansion of the number of skilled guest worker visas. That draft, though, includes language that it considers excessive regulatory oversight of when a company can hire a temporary foreign worker and lay off an existing American worker.
Executives from Silicon Valley companies say such language would effectively keep them from using the larger numbers of temporary work permits, known as H-1B visas. They also warn of more jobs being shipped overseas. They are backing proposed amendments that would reverse those provisions.
New American Bill Threatens Indian Outsourcing
Under the bill, which is being backed by executives from American technology firms, the total number of H-1B visas will increase to 110,000 from 65,000. However, the bill will limit the overall percentage of foreign workers that outsourcing companies like Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services or Infosys can have in the United States, and will require companies that have 30 to 50 percent of their workforce on temporary visas to pay $5,000 for every new foreign worker they hire.
After 2014, companies that employ more than 75 percent of their workers in the United States on temporary visas will not be granted new H-1B visas, and by 2016 that threshold will be brought down to 50 percent.
The bill does not specifically target Indian outsourcing companies, but because foreign workers typically make up 50 to 75 percent of these companies’ staff in the United States, the legislation will greatly limit their hiring practices.
Many Indian outsourcing firms have been expanding their operations in the United States, even as the economy there has slowed in recent years. Indian companies have invested $5.9 billion in the United States to set up offices closer to their American clients, according to a survey of 35 Indian companies by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the India Business Forum published last year.