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

Wed May 15 10:38:49 PDT 2013


Vigorous debate on the Hill the other day on provisions regarding H-1B
in the Senate immigration bill.  One my readers, who attended, reports,

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      While Sen. Schumer repeatedly said "we all know there is a
      shortage" (of native STEM workers), Sen. Sessions hammered away at
      that argument with lots of articles showing the glut.

      Unfortunately, a disproportionate amount of time is being spent on
      attacking the Indian firms. Schumer basically said only
      H-1B-dependent employers are abusing the program.

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This is a classical tactic, appealing to the notion that "we all know
that..."  As I've often said, that in turn has been the goal of the
industry lobbyists over the years, implanting in the American
consciousness the idea that we have a STEM shortage.

As I've also pointed out, another tactic has been to scapegoat the
Indians, which you see above.  Schumer in particular has been at the
vanguard of this "movement."

One of the issues debated was reported by CNBC as follows
at http://www.cnbc.com/id/100733417 

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      The Senate bill would require employers who want to use a
      government-run website and offer it to any qualified American.

      One of Hatch's amendments would loosen these provisions and only
      require employers to take good-faith steps to recruit Americans.
      And only "H-1B dependent" companies, which hire a large number of
      foreign workers, would be required to first offer the job to an
      American.            

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I wish to emphasize once again that under the bill, the H-1B program would be
largely eclipsed by the equally-harmful STEM visa provision, which in
essence would give blanket green cards to all foreign STEM grad
students.  But the U.S. recruitment provision regarding H-1B in the bill
IS still important, and what is even more important is that Hatch's
amendment shows again the attempt to scapegoat the Indian firms.

Hatch's amendment failed, 2-15 with Leahy abstaining,

Also of interest is Sen. Feinstein's comments, reported at
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/05/14/senators-battle-over-tech-worker-visas/   

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      Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-CA),. and several other Democrats,
      including Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Patrick Leahy (VT) and Al
      Franken (MN) expressed sympathy for the idea. Feinstein recalled a
      meeting she had in San Diego with American workers, “all above age
      50, all had been replaced by H-1b workers,” Feinstein said. “You
      saw it clearly, they were traditional engineers, the technology
      had moved on,” and companies instead wanted, “young, flexible,
      highly qualified techies, generally Asian in California.  I felt
      very badly for these people. If you’re above the age of 50 it’s
      very hard for an American to get another job.”

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These are sympathetic comments, no doubt sincere.  But they wrongly
support the myth that the H-1Bs are hired in lieu of older Americans
because the latter don't have up-to-date skill sets.  I've shown in
detail in the past why this argument is wrong, and in fact it is yet
another distract attention from the real issues.

Odd that Feinstein mentions that the H-1Bs in tech are generally Asian.
(The largest nationality among the tech H-1Bs by far is Indian, followed
by Chinese in a distant second place.)  It's irrelevant, so I wonder
what her point was, maybe yet another reflecting of the "blame the
Indians" sentiment.

Norm


Archived at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/H1BPolitics.txt