Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 00:15:39 -0800 From: Norm Matloff Subject: UCB conference--a little heat, but lots of light To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter The Berkeley Schools of Law and Journalism hosted a conference on immigration this week, in which I served in a panel discussion on H-1B. Like the meeting last year, the goal was to educate journalists on immigration, "going beyond the rhetoric." I was a panelist at the conference last year too; see http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/AcademicsRescue.txt which includes among other things a link to the videos of last year's presentations. This year's panel on H-1B consisted of Vivek Wadhwa, well known to readers of this e-newsletter, Angelo Paparelli, a prominent immigration lawyer, and myself. The organizers did another great job in inviting interesting speakers. I regret not being able to attend the other days' sessions. And I would say that in terms of the H-1B session, this turned out to be the most educational (for the audience) forum I've ever ever participated in on H-1B. But this will unfold gradually below, so please bear with me. I'm cc-ing the organizers. For their benefit, let me explain that this e-newsletter is read by programmers, engineers, journalists, academics, policy analysts and others interested in H-1B and related issues. Old postings are in http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive The panel came at the end of a long day, so one of the organizers of the conference expressed concern that the audience might be a little less attentive. Vivek replied, "Don't worry, we'll wake them up [then turning to me], right, Norm?" I agreed that the audience would definitely be attentive. That turned out to be a huge understatement, as fireworks followed! Vivek became very highly emotional during his presentation, and during much of the Q&A session. Vivek does have a track record along these lines, but this time he was even more emotional, losing control. I will indeed describe it (I feel I have to, since someone in the audience wrote about it on Twitter), but I ask the reader NOT to dwell on this issue. Yes, those in the audience probably found Vivek's outburst to be one of the most memorable incidents during the five days of the conference, but I believe that they'll feel that it was equally dramatic that Vivek and I agree regarding the underpayment of H-1Bs. He and I knew beforehand that we agreed on that, of course, but the audience didn't, so this is huge. (Though there are definitely other important things I'll report on in this posting.) Berkeley economics professor David Card spoke in an earlier session the same day. His presentation itself was rather dry, and he did his own sniping at some fellow economists, accusing them of bias. But some of his responses to audience questions were quite surprising. I'll discuss this too, below; don't miss it. The organizers of the conference encouraged the audience to "tweet" about what they were seeing, and I'm including the tweets below as well. Angelo spoke first. He complained a lot about the arbitrary and capricious behavior of USCIS adjudicators in foreign labor cases (which I agreed upon later in my talk). There was a lot of the usual talk of "why are we making it difficult to stay in the U.S. for smart people, entrepreneurs etc. that could help the U.S. economy?" He noted that no major change has been made to the immigration code since 1990, asserting that it no longer is fit for current times. The now-common term "our broken immigration system" (which by the way is on the USCIS Web page) came up once or twice. I was up next. I was the only one of the three to have slides, which you can view at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/UCB2011Slides.pdf My theme was that Rep. Lofgren's current bill, and one by Sen. Schumer last year, amount to unfair scapegoating of the Indian firms. This "blame the Indians" approach has been around DC and related circles for many years, and longtime readers of this e-newsletter know that I've been complaining about it for years. I've been warning that it would eventually lead to the introduction of unfair and unhelpful legislation, which of course has now come to pass. I mention here my long opposition to such thinking because Vivek seemed to think that it was a recent, and "convenient," trick that I had suddenly thought of; more on this below. Some of you will recall that this past July I was a participant in a workshop in DC on STEM labor issues, funded by the Sloan Foundation; see http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/SloanDC.txt In my report here at the time, I described the cast of characters, though nameless: The attendees (by invitation only) could be described as the Who's Who of DC policymakers related to the above issues, people in key positions in various major federal government agencies. (For reasons explained below, I will not list their names or agencies here.) There were also several of us from academia, as well as several professional advocates--one from organized labor, one from the business community who specializes in matters such as H-1B, and one from a think tank allied with the immigration lawyers. The workshop was conducted under Chatham House Rules, meaning that one may report what was said but not who said it (including their affiliations). If you haven't read that posting yet, I urge you to do so, because it gives a rare glimpse of how policy is made in DC, but here is my point: One of the speakers in the morning, a political appointee in a key government agency, spoke glowingly of the Lofgren bill. Again, from my writeup here at the time: Though it never explicitly says so, the recently-introduced Lofgren IDEA Act is very much focused on the [Indian firms]...[I spent most of my afternoon presentation on this point] only to find that everyone already seemed to be aware of it. Indeed, they seemed to understand that this was in fact the point of the Lofgren bill, to target the Indians. Here in a nutshell is my argument that I made to the Berkeley conference as to why such targeting is unfair: 1. The employers claim they hire H-1Bs because they have some special quality, say experience in a "hot" technological skill, an advanced degree, "best and brightest" talent level, etc. 2. Yet the legal prevailing wage is just an average for the given occupation, region and experience level, so it doesn't take into account "special qualities." 3. Therefore the legal prevailing wage is lower than what the H-1Bs would command on the open market. 4. The PERM data for employer-sponsored green cards show that more than half of the software engineers are paid only at or near the prevailing wage--thus they are underpaid! 5. The Indian firms usually don't sponsor workers for green cards, so the PERM data are for mainstream U.S. firms. 6. Therefore the mainstream U.S. firms underpay the foreign workers, just like the Indian firms do, and thus legislation that targets the Indians is scapegoating. This data analysis was in general. I then presented the number for Angelo's firm, Seyfarth and Shaw--and it was the same. In other words, more than half of Angelo's firm's clients are underpaid. Keep in mind, this underpayment is FULLY LEGAL, due to loopholes. I emphasized this point repeatedly in my presentation. I also emphasized another favorite point of mine, that H-1B and related programs are causing an Internal Brain Drain, in which we're losing our own best and brightest to more lucrative fields, because the influx of foreign workers has kept STEM wages down. I also brought in my constant point that H-1B is fundamentally about age, used by employers to avoid hiring the 35+ year-old Americans, hiring the 20-something H-1Bs instead, for much lower wages. During my presentation, I brought in some quotes of Vivek's, along the lines of Vivek's past statements that (a) the H-1Bs ARE underpaid, and it IS due to loopholes; (b) there IS a big age issue in tech, and (c) Vivek reacted just as negatively as I did to Schumer's Indian-scapegoating bill. Then it was Vivek's turn. He had a stern look on his face as he walked up to the podium, and he immediately went into a tirade directed at me. He was quite angry. He started by complaining "I don't like my words being used against me!", "I don't like hearing my name four times!", and so on. He didn't claim that I had misquoted him, or that I had quoted him out of context, nor did he explain why what I said was "against him." But then he started to call me a racist, claiming that my outrage against the Indian scapegoating was just a ruse on my part. He ridiculed the fact that my wife is a Chinese immigrant, etc. He repeatedly said to the audience, "Now you watch, Matloff is going to write this in his e-newsletter" (which of course is exactly what I'm doing here). One of the journalists in the audience tweeted that Vivek also called me a "wacko"; I don't remember that one, but the epithets were flying by so quickly that I just couldn't keep up. Vivek complained that people make negative comments about him on blogs, quoting me on the H-1B issue, and so on. It's true that Vivek seems to be a favorite target of some H-1B critics on the Web, who assert that he exaggerates his credentials, that his statements are highly misleading if not dishonest, and so on. But of course this comes with the territory, if one is something of a public figure, and Vivek has to get used to that. Vivek finally did get into his real topics: America is losing good people because the green card waits are as long as 70 years, India and China are the winners from this, 52% of the startups in Silicon Valley are founded by immigrants, etc. Then he suddenly stopped and went back to his seat. There was stunned silence in the audience. The moderator said nothing. In my 35 years in academia (and quasi-academia, i.e. the think tanks and so on), I have seen only one other outburst like it. Vivek's tirade was not a total surprise, given his track record in debates in which he harangued Prof. Ronil Hira on CNBC and more recently CNN; see http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/BankOfAmWadhwaHira.txt http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/HiraVsWadhwa2.txt Here's what I wrote in that first posting: As someone who likes and respects both Vivek and Ron, the video clip was painful to watch. Vivek got carried away, and said things I think he doesn't really believe. Ron, by contrast, was very calm, with a "Why did I EVER agree to participating in this circus?" look on his face, but calm to the point of not aggressively defending his point of view. I had thought that the CNBC incident would be the last, but there was another like it on CNN, again between Vivek and Ron, just a couple of weeks ago. Vivek essentially accused Ron, who is a fellow ethnic Indian, of betraying his heritage by criticizing the H-1B program. I should add that Vivek has on two occasions publicly accused me of fabricating my data, the worst charge one can bring against an academic. This certainly annoys me, as I've stated publicly here and privately to some of you. Yet, having grown up in an emotional family, I tend to be more understanding; I'll just leave it at that. I've also strongly praised some of Vivek's research, especially the novel way in which he investigated whether there is a tech labor shortage. One of Vivek's hobby horses is Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist and uber-libertarian who is giving "fellowships" to highly talented college kids to quit school and become entrepreneurs. Vivek brought that up during the Q&A, saying how strongly he opposed Thiel on this issue, and I said I agreed with Vivek. Vivek then smiled and said, "In that case, I'll calm down." (He did say "sorry about all that" to me when I said goodbye to him at the end of the day.) During the Q&A Vivek did say emphatically that H-1Bs are underpaid, and that he wants to abolish the H-1B visa program entirely, replacing it with a liberalized green card program. Angelo of course disagreed, saying some people just want to work temporarily. I agreed with Angelo; I've never called for eliminating the program. Vivek also mentioned that he has added a couple of universities to his string of affiliations, and mentioned that he does not draw a salary. (He had a funny "Rick Perry" moment, rattling off the string of schools, ending with Stanford, but then saying, "There's one more...uh...let's see...oh, Emory!") When it came Angelo's first turn to talk during the Q&A, he said in response to the data I had shown about his firm, "I can assure you that my firm does not violate the law." That of course ignored the umpteen times I had stated that H-1Bs are underpaid in full compliance with the law, due to loopholes. Thus I was quite taken aback when Angelo later actually brought up a loophole on his own, though he tried to "explain" why there was nothing insidious about it. Here's the setting: I've mentioned that prevailing wage is based on the JOB, not the WORKER. Say an employer (sincerely) advertises a job as requiring a Bachelor's degree, with a Master's being a plus. If the employer hires an H-1B who has a Master's, the law only requires the employer to pay the worker at a Bachelor's wage. In other words, the law sets up the employer to hire a Master's worker at a Bachelor's wage. Such a deal! But Angelo tried to justify it, saying "So what if the foreign worker wants to work for a lower wage? It's up to him." But that of course is ignoring the point that when an employer says "Master's degree a plus," it means by definition that the employer VALUES a Master's, and would pay extra for it were the applicant a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. The hypothetical H-1B here is underpaid, and thus can edge an American with the same qualifications out of being hired. I had enjoyed chatting with Angelo during an earlier break, but he and I had an odd exchange during the Q&A: I, addressing the audience: What Vivek was referring to was a tiff between him and Ron Hira on CNN recently, in which Ron cited the incident of the Bank of America replacing Americans by H-1Bs. Angelo: That's impossible. If it occurred, the Americans could have brought a complaint, and the Bank of America would have been debarred from the H-1B program. It's illegal to displace Americans like that. I, in amazement: Angelo, what law are you citing? Angelo, after a substantial pause: The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act. I: Angelo, I'm sorry, but I'm amazed you would say this in public. It's not true. Angelo: It's true for so-called "H-1B dependent employers." I: Angelo, the Bank of America is not an H-1B dependent employer. Angelo: No, but if they had used an outside staffing agency that IS an H-1B dependent employer, then they'd be in violation. In other words, Angelo knew all along that as long as the BofA did the replacing (which I believe is the case), it would not be illegal at all. Yet he was flatly stating that it would have been illegal, no matter what firm did the replacing. If I hadn't called him on it, the audience would have believed that American workers were safe from displacement by our big institutions like the BofA. At any rate, in spite of the histrionics, I believe the audience came away with a clear view that Vivek and I agreed that the H-1Bs are underpaid. Poor Angelo, sitting between Vivek and me, must have felt a little odd, especially since he probably expected Vivek to agree with him (which he does on some issues). Unfortunately, we ran out of time in the Q&A, so I didn't have time to discuss, for instance, Vivek's 52% figure and the like. I did say his 70-year wait figure comes from an extremely biased person whose research I've found to be quite misleading over the years. Now, what about David Card? He's an accomplished figure, various honors and so on. I believe he is best known for his research on (a) the impact of the Mariel boatlift on Miami labor and (b) impact of minimum wage laws. He spent a considerable part of his time criticizing the work of Harvard's George Borjas concerning the impact of immigration on labor. He also said that researchers from the Center for Immigration Studies were "anti-immigrant" (verbatim phrase), and seemed to be implying the same for Borjas. When someone in the audience asked whether Borjas was guilty of political bias, Card said yes. There's no question that George is more on what is called the "restrictionist" side of the immigration debate. He wrote a book on it, after all. But Card praised my Davis colleague Giovanni Peri as neutral on the issue, which is absurd. Giovanni's a nice guy, and kindly agreed to give a guest lecture when I once taught a freshman seminar on immigration (http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/frs.html). But Giovanni is no middle-of-the-roader on immigration, that's for sure, and is just as supportive of large-scale immigration as George and the CIS people have reservations about it. In the midst of that discussion, Card suddenly said, "[Biased research] is like when one is an expert witness, presenting only one side of the issue." Since Card and I served as expert witnesses in an age discrimination suit against a prominent tech firm a couple of years ago (he was retained by the defendant, and I by the plaintiff; the case was settled), his out-of-the-blue remark really took me aback. I strongly disagree with that characterization of an expert's role, and can certainly say that in all my stints as an expert, I have taken my responsibility to be presenting all the facts, not filtered, no matter which side of the case they support. But the most interesting part of Card's session in the conference was that Angelo asked him from the audience, "Do you agree that high-tech immigrants create jobs?" Card answered no, citing some economic principles. But Angelo pressed it, asking, "Well, maybe the high-tech immigrants raise incomes--are people who say that all wet?" Card answered, "Yes, they're pretty wet." Actually, I didn't find Card's explanations very convincing, and in my view both of them were missing the real point: Even if some tech product does create new jobs, it does so whoever develops that product, immigrant or native, as long as the developer is competent and creative. If there weren't qualified people to fill that developer position, things might be different, but they ARE available, if not at the employer's preferred price. But it's interesting that the highly pro-immigration Card didn't give Angelo the confirmation he had expected. Someone asked Card if he, as an immigrant, has been underpaid. As a matter of fact yes, he said smiling. When Princeton applied for a green card for him when he joined their faculty, the INS rejected the application because the offered salary was too low! (One of the journalists attending the conference said he'd been underpaid when he was an H-1B too.) Tweeting was suggested by the organizers, under the name #journalism2011, and I'm enclosing the audience tweets below. They make for fun reading, but I must comment on the remark by Neroulias questioning MY credentials. [See, Vivek, you're not alone. :-) ] I wonder why she feels that David Card is qualified to analyze immigration, given that he uses statistical regression analysis, just like me. And what about Vivek? He has no formal background in research at all, so why is he qualified, in Neroulias' view? Neroulias was the one, I believe, who seemed to express admiration for Google cofounder and immigrant Sergei Brin, so there might be a bit of bias there. Again, certainly one of the most stimulating conferences I've participated in, and many thanks to the organizers. Norm Roxana A. Soto roxanaSB Roxana A. Soto @wadhwa: high skilled worker immigrants are getting fed up & leaving US because of amount of time it takes 2 get green card #journalism2011 BeliefBeat Nicole Neroulias @wadhwa: India & China has tech boom b/c US now drives those ppl away! Many Silicon Valley startups founded by immigrants. scribehernan Hernan Rozemberg Prof. Norman Matloff @ UC-Davis: Foreign professionals on high-tech visas are underpaid b/c they're more educated . #journalism2011 lizcgoodwin Liz Goodwin High-skilled immig panel getting heated. Vivek Wadhwa just called our previous panelist, Prof Norman Matloff, a wacko. #journalism2011 scribehernan Hernan Rozemberg Vivek Wadhwa: Presenter at Berkeley immigration seminar likens previous speaker, Prof. Matloff, to "white supremacists." BeliefBeat Nicole Neroulias Matloff: Fix H-1B by raising prevailing wage to 75 percentile (currently at 50th), 90th to get quick greencards. #journalism2011 raquel ruiz author raquelruizwrite raquel ruiz author #journalism2011 .#immigration Prof Matloff: confirms that fewer Americans get PhDs b/c immigrants had lowered wages BeliefBeat Nicole Neroulias Matloff: Fewer Americans get PhDs now b/c immigration has lowered grad student salaries. (Not sure I agree.) #journalism2011 NewsGus Gustavo Martinez Norman Matloff: Americans don't go to grad school because H1B Visas stagnate salaries. #journalism2011 raquelruizwrite raquel ruiz author .#journalism2011 .#immigration Prof Matloff: The visa H-B1 is all about cheap labor. The "Indias" has been scapegoats scribehernan Hernan Rozemberg Prof. Norman Matloff @ UC-Davis: Foreign professionals on high-tech visas are underpaid b/c they're more educated . raquelruizwrite raquel ruiz author .#Journalism2011 .#immigration Prof Matloff: INS is 1 of the worst bureaucracies, but the law itself -immigration- its the 1 with problems raquel ruiz author @raquelruizwrite raquel ruiz author .#journalism2011 .#immigration Prof Matloff: The visa H-B1 is all about cheap labor. The "Indias" has been scapegoats Nicole Neroulias BeliefBeat Nicole Neroulias In all seriousness - Matloff is statistics/computer science prof. How/why is he expert in immigration/age discrimination?