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

Tue May 21 20:45:18 PDT 2013


Sen. Hatch seems to be getting his way with the Judiciary Committee,
with his H-1B-related amendments, and sadly, not a single person on the
committee seems to be concerned about the most dangerous part of the
bill from a STEM perspective.

There is a report at 

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/300989-schumer-and-hatch-strike-breakthrough-deal-on-h-1b-visas

Here are my comments:

1.  The original text of the bill required employers to give pirority to
equally-qualified Americans before offering a job to a foreign worker.
THIS WAS THE BILL'S ONLY PROTECTION AGAINST THE AGE PROBLEM, in which
employers hire younger H-1Bs in lieu of older (35+) Americans.  The
provision would bar employers from rejecting American applicants as
being "overqualified."  But if Hatch's amendment is adopted, as is
expected now, that provision would apply only to H-1B-dependent
employers.

2.  The committee has done nothing at all to soften the provision that
gives automatic green cards to essentially ALL foreign graduate students
in STEM, no limit, no labor certification, just waving everyone on
through.

As I've said, point 2 above is huge; it would be a historical watershed
event.  I believe that we will be seeing a lot of very angry people,
once they realize what has been snuck through.  They'll demand to know
who did this.  Again, these are very strong words, but I cannot imagine
any different scenario if this provision is eancted.

Norm


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