Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 23:04:22 -0700 From: Norm Matloff To: Norm Matloff Subject: [JobDestructionNews@zazona.com: H-1B Increase Approved by Senate Judiciary] To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter I'm enclosing below a posting by Rob Sanchez to his e-newsletter. It in turn includes a call to action by Roy Beck of NumbersUSA, an immigration reform group. so I will not comment on the current legislation, except to point out the secrecy in which it is being put forward. As far as I can tell, there has been a news blackout on this legislation, at least in terms of the national media, largely due to the fact that Congress has chosen to hide the proposal in a huge, complex budget bill, so as to not draw attention to it. The news that Rob reports here is apparently not in tomorrow's (Friday's) New York Times or Washington Post, for instance. This "H-1B legislation by stealth" has been common in the past. In 2000, the vote in the House on the H-1B expansion bill was literally done in the dead of the night. It had been announced in the afternoon that no further votes would be held that day, so the congresspeople could go home for the day. Yet a vote on the H-1B bill was held that evening, with only 40 of the 435 members of the House present, with ordinary voting rules bypassed, and the ballot being a voice vote. Members of Congress, in a couple of incidents of rare candor, admitted that the H-1B legislation was purely because of the industry's campaign contributions. Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) remarked, "Once it's clear (the visa bill) is going to get through, everybody signs up so nobody can be in the position of being accused of being against high tech. There were, in fact, a whole lot of folks against it, but because they are tapping the high-tech community for campaign contributions, they don't want to admit that in public." Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), said, "This is not a popular bill with the public. It's popular with the CEOs...This is a very important issue for the high-tech executives who give the money." (Carolyn Lochhead, Bill to Boost Tech Visas Sails Through Congress: Clinton Expected to Sign Popular Measure, San Francisco Chronicle, October 4, 2000; Committee To Address Bill Eliminating H-1B Cap, National Journal Technology Daily, May 5, 2000; and Lars-Erik Nelson, Pols Are Going Overboard On Visa Program, New York Daily News, May 3, 2000. A Harris Poll in 1998 found that 82% of those surveyed were opposed to the H-1B expansion bill which eventually passed that year. (There was a lot more publicity that year, before the industry lobbyists and Congress found that stealth was better.) Norm ----- Forwarded message from JobDestructionNews@zazona.com ----- Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 14:01:15 -0700 Reply-To: ReplyTo_JDNews@zazona.com From: JobDestructionNews@zazona.com To: matloff@cs.ucdavis.edu Subject: H-1B Increase Approved by Senate Judiciary ------------------------<<<>>>------------------------ JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER by Rob Sanchez October 20, 2005 No. 1351 ------------------------<<<>>>------------------------ NumbersUSA just sent out breaking news that the Senate Judiciary approved the increase in H-1B and green card visas. I have been asking all of you to call your Senators to try to stop this increase. My impression is that very few of you have taken the few minutes required to make the phone call. The default position of doing nothing means that the bad guys win once again. I'll have more specifics on what happened in the Senate as the story unfolds. This excerpt from the article following Roy Beck's commentary will tell you who to thank when you call. "SIIA commends the work of Judiciary Committee Chairman Specter and Ranking Member Leahy for their strong leadership on this critical issue," continued Wasch, "and we look forward to working with the House to see that this measure is enacted." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA Date: Thursday 20OCT05 3:30 a.m. Senate Judiciary just approved selling U.S. tech jobs to foreign workers You must phone your disgust to Senators now .... .... if you want to have a chance at stopping this travesty from passing into law. .... if you want any hope of deterring these same Senators from future acts of aggression against American workers, you must call them now so they can feel the public condemnation. The Senate Judiciary Committee just voted for Sen. Specter's (R-PA) plan to sell hundreds of thousands of additional work visas and permanent green cards to corporations for them to distribute to foreign workers so they can take American high-tech and professional jobs from American workers. Their rationale was that the government needs the money. These Senators behave this way because they sincerely believe that people like you will not hold them accountable ... that you will not even raise your voice, make a phone call, send a fax or take your fury to a talk show. If we are ever to get some relief for American workers, we must overwhelm these sell-out Senators NOW. 1. Call these Senators at these phone numbers The most important call for everybody is Sen. Specter who is the chairman of the committee and who invented this latest sell-out of American skilled workers. ========================= Pennsylvania ========================= Sen. Specter, Arlen (202-224-4254) Be sure to call any Senator from your own state. If you have time, next call Senators from states that adjoin yours. These are the Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who allowed Specter's plan to sell American jobs to foreign workers. ========================= Delaware ========================= Sen. Biden, Joseph (202-224-5042) ========================= Illinois ========================= Sen. Durbin, Richard (202-224-2152) ========================= Kansas ========================= Sen. Brownback, Sam (202-224-6521) ========================= Massachusetts ========================= Sen. Kennedy, Edward (202-224-4543) ========================= New York ========================= Sen. Schumer, Charles (202-224-6542) ================= Ohio ========================= Sen. DeWine, Mike (202-224-2315) ========================= Pennsylvania ========================= Sen. Specter, Arlen (202-224-4254) ========================= South Carolina ========================= Sen. Graham, Lindsey (202-224-5972) ========================= Texas ========================= Sen. Cornyn, John (202-224-2934) ========================= Utah ========================= Sen. Hatch, Orrin (202-224-5251) ========================= Vermont ========================= Sen. Leahy, Patrick (202-224-4242) ========================= Wisconsin ========================= Sen. Feingold, Russell (202-224-5323) Sen. Kohl, Herb (202-224-5653) 2. What to say on the phone I think you can pretty well figure out for yourself what to say. 1. Let them know that you know what this Senator allowed the Senate Judiciary Committee to do today. Tell the staffer who answers that you are calling about the Specter/Kennedy proposal to sell massive new amounts of foreign-worker green cards and work visas to corporations in order to reduce budget deficits. (We do not have any recorded votes to give you at this time. So don't use the words that the Senator "voted" for this. Rather, use the words that the Senator "allowed" this. We have left off the phone list the names of Senators who we believe did something to oppose Specter's plan.) 2. Let them know why you think Specter's plan is a travesty to American students studying for scientific, engineering and high-tech fields and a travesty to all Americans already in those fields. 3. Give you own connection to the issue. 4. Finish with a succinct statement such as: I oppose any action that increases green cards or visas for foreign workers. Give American workers a chance. Reduce all immigration. 3. The Spectre/Kennedy plan to offset the budget deficit by selling American professional jobs to foreign workers Senate Judiciary Chairman Specter (R-PA) and Sen. Kennedy (D-MA) have pushed through the committee a plan that is so callous that you may have difficulty believing it is true. Because of the profligate spending by Congress and the President in recent years, each congressional committee is now charged with coming up with big spending cuts or big revenue increases. The Judiciary Committee has now decided to balance their part of the budget mess on the backs of unemployed and underemployed high-tech and other professional workers -- and on the backs of American students who are currently studying to enter those occupations. The plan by Specter and Kennedy is to sell hundreds of thousands of American professional jobs over the next several years to foreign workers -- or more precisely, to sell them to corporations which will then be allowed to import foreign workers instead of having to hire Americans. See excerpt from the Congressional Quarterly Article below. 4. The CQ Today article explaining the Specter/Kennedy sell-out of American workers CQ TODAY Judiciary Committees Offer Dueling Proposals on Charges for Visas for Savings Targets By Michael Sandler, CQ Staff The House and Senate Judiciary committees hope to meet their relatively small mandatory savings targets by charging fees for visa programs that benefit businesses. However, their initiatives differ enough to have the business community favor one and oppose the other. The two committees must produce $300 million in savings over the next five years, a tiny fraction of the $34.7 billion in overall reductions called for in the budget resolution (H Con Res 95). ******** The business community favors an alternative proposal by Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa. Specter's plan ... would allow the federal government to go back to October 1991 and recapture all unused H-1B visas ?? issued for specialty occupations that require a bachelor's degree or the equivalent. Those visas would be re-issued and assessed a $500 fee. The estimated 60,000 unclaimed visas issued each year would generate $30 million a year, or half the amount needed over the five-year budget reconciliation period. The rest would come from reclaiming unused employment-based immigrant visas for professional workers, going back to 2001. A $500 fee would be added to all employment-based visas. 5. NumbersUSA analysis of specifics of the Specter/Kennedy plan As soon as we know the details of what the Senate Judiciary Committee did today, we will let you know. We are aware, for example, that Sen. Sessions (R-AL) and Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) were successful in moderately limiting some of the damage that Specter proposed. Your NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team says that the Specter/Kennedy plan proposed for Thursday's vote would have done the following: 1. It would raise the annual cap on permanent employment-based immigration by changing the formula as follows: employment-based visas = 140,000 + any unused family-based visas from the previous year + (the lesser of 90,000 or unused employment-based visas from any prior year). 2. It exempts the spouses and children of employment-based immigrants from counting against the numerical cap, beginning in 2004. (In 2003, workers got 36,210 visas, and their spouses and children got 45,927 visas. Total visas could have more than doubled under this bill.) 3. It adds a fee of $500 per petition for most employment-based visa petitions. 4. It allows alien spouses and children of citizens to adjust to Legal Permanent Resident status if the citizen abused them, died, or lost or renounced their citizenship; and it allows alien spouses and children of LPRs to adjust to LPR status if the LPR abused them or died. 5. Anytime the H-1B cap is reached, the lesser of 60,000 or any unused visas in any prior years are added to the cap. This proposal follows an alarming pattern of Senators constantly using immigration to hammer American professionals in information-technology, health care, science and engineering. Last winter in an otherwise wonderful REAL ID bill, Sen. Hutchison (R-TX) blindsided all of us in a Joint Conference Committee by adding tens of thousands of permanent greencards for foreign nurses and other foreign professionals. These actions usually are at the request of the all-owerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce for whom greed has no limit. Nothing will change. The sell-out will occur. Senators will be encouraged to continue to find creative ways to knock down American workers. .... UNLESS ...... Unless you make that phone call TODAY. Only when these Senators hear a wall of noise from American voters that they demand NO MORE INCREASES IN IMMIGRATION -- ONLY REDUCTIONS IN IMMIGRATION -- will they stop these every-few-months shenanigans. -- ROY +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051020/dcth056.html?.v=23 SIIA Supports Senate Judiciary Committee Adoption of Measure Providing Critical Interim Workforce Relief Thursday October 20, 2:33 pm ET Budget Measure Would Provide IT Industry with Stop-gap Relief for Crisis-level Shortage of H-1B Visas and Green Cards WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) President Ken Wasch endorsed the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's adoption of a budget reconciliation proposal to provide U.S. employers with critical interim workforce relief. "SIIA supports the proposal because it will provide U.S. companies with much-needed access to H-1B visas already approved by Congress and by amending certain visa counting procedures to address the urgent demand among IT companies in our country," said Wasch. "Despite concerns that the number of additional H-1B visas was cut in half from the Chairman's original proposal, SIIA believes that the proposal represents an interim solution for immediate U.S. workforce needs while also providing necessary revenue for the Federal Government. Both of these objectives are consistent with the goal of positioning the U.S. for continued global leadership in innovative technology." For the U.S. information technology (IT) industry to remain the world leader in technological innovation, U.S. companies must be able to attract and retain the best talent from around the world. As a result of caps on temporary visas for highly educated workers and the lack of green card availability, the industry is currently losing the battle to hire many of the best educated professionals. SIIA is a leading supporter of efforts to expand domestic workforce talent. SIIA also supports this legislation because it will provide critical interim relief to meet demands that threaten to become crippling to the U.S. IT industry in the very near future. "SIIA commends the work of Judiciary Committee Chairman Specter and Ranking Member Leahy for their strong leadership on this critical issue," continued Wasch, "and we look forward to working with the House to see that this measure is enacted." About SIIA The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection to more than 800 leading software and information companies. For further information, visit http://www.siia.net. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - www.ZaZona.com Support this Newsletter and ZaZona.com by donating: www.zazona.com/Donations.htm To Subscribe, Unsubscribe or to view the Archive go to: http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/JobDestructionNews.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----- End forwarded message -----