To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter

Tue Apr 16 18:22:15 PDT 2013


An outline has been circulating of the Gang of 8's comprehensive
immigration reform bill, at

http://immigrationreports.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/revised-outline-of-immigration-bill-4-15-2.pdf

A San Jose Mercury News reporter asked a few people to comment (in 100
words or less), and the writeups are now at

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_23037637/bay-area-reacts-senate-immigration-bill?source=pkg

Regarding my "devil in details" concern, I'll be closely watching the
exact language that emerges, and will analyze it here at that time.
There are a lot of ways in which it could turn out to be only cosmetic,
and downright misleading.

FOR INSTANCE:  I had originally read the outline as meaning that the
bill would NOT create a special "STEM visa," which you may recall that I
have characterized as an end run around H-1B.  As I read the outline
again now, I see that it is vague on that issue.  If the bill does
create a STEM visa category, and if the reformed H-1B wage requirement
does not apply to such visas, then things would be even worse than
now--A LOT worse.  (Note too the "within 5 years" clause, exacerbating
the age discrimination problem.)

Just in case I'm not clear above:  If the bill creates a STEM visa and
that visa does not have a realistic wage requirement, THINGS WOULD BE A
EVEN WORSE THAN THEY ARE NOW.  We'd have a lot more visas, without any
increased protection for U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

Note that Vivek shares my concern about "handcuffing."  A fix for this
would be REALLY easy to add to the bill.  The ONLY reason for failure to
include an anti-handcuffing position is that the Gang of 8 KNOWS that
the employers place high value on handcuffing their foreign workers.
The ethical implications of that are profound.

Norm

Archived at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/FirstComments.txt


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