visas

Writing in the November 15 issue of ComputerWorld, Patrick Thibodeau reminds us of the plight of today’s college graduates who have obtained pricey degrees in technical fields, but have become burdened with tuition debt while trying to compete in a tight job market with the estimated 650,000 foreign workers already here under H-1B visas.

Things could get worse under the Senate immigration reform bill, which calls for increasing the current annual H-1B visa cap of 65,000 to about 180,000...

Ironically, with an anemic economy and a stubborn unemployment rate of 7 percent, the nation’s blue chip companies continue to lobby for more H-1B visas at a time when many are shedding headcount to cut costs.

Last quarter, Cisco laid off 4,000 people, bringing its two-year total layoffs to 12,000. HP just completed a plan announced in 2012 to cut 9,000 American jobs. Pharmaceutical giant Merck announced it will cut 8,500 more jobs, bringing the total number to 16,000...

Mass layoffs are typically justified in terms of restructuring to meet changing market needs, retooling for the next phase of innovation, or remaining competitive in an increasingly dynamic industry. But there’s more to it than this. These goals can be achieved in large part by replacing American workers with foreign workers who will do more for less and not complain about it.

In September, IBM agreed to settle a claim with the Justice Department that its job listings for almost four years expressed a preference for foreign workers with temporary visas over U.S. citizens. According to one HR manager at the company, the cost difference is too great for IBM not to look for foreign workers first. Many firms routinely violate the “citizens-first” hiring rule, but because they are hit with paltry fines if caught, it is easy to dismiss them as a cost of doing business.

Tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Cisco are among the many companies awash in cash, yet claim to need more foreign workers to stay on life support. If corporate profits are any measure, this line of reasoning falls squarely into the category of pure blather. The SP500 companies are sitting on a cash pile of $1.3 trillion.

Apple is widely hailed as the world leader in innovation. It has accumulated a cash hoard of $147 billion, which equates to nearly 10% of all corporate cash held by non-financial companies, according to Moody’s. Google pales in comparison with only $56 billion cash on hand and Facebook with $10 billion. All three companies are key players in petitioning Congress to lift the H-1B visa cap, as if they faced imminent extinction without a drip infusion of foreign workers.

The prospect of a big increase in H-1B visas could have serious consequences for American students and society...

Under the H-1B program, companies are allowed to pay foreign workers less than American citizens. When a company sees its competitors doing this, they have little choice but to follow suit to lower their own operating costs. This situation lowers wages across the board, making it difficult for American graduates to compete for jobs, pay down tuition loans, buy homes and raise families. With an uncertain job future in technical fields, high school students have good reason to think twice about pursuing expensive university degrees in preparation for jobs they are not likely to get.

In the ComputerWorld article, Karen Panetta, IEEE-USA Vice President for Communications and Public Awareness, and a professor of electrical engineering at Tufts University, warned that the cost of tuition in the U.S. is so unrealistically prohibitive that a class shift is underway. “The really wealthy are the only ones who can afford to send their kids to school,” she said. With her students owing $50,000 on average, “It’s the house you are not going to be able to buy for another 10 years.”

Also reported in ComputerWorld, Hal Salzman, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University, noted that the U.S. produces enough graduates to satisfy the demands of the labor market. But if the H-1B visa cap increase goes through, he sees a market that will be flooded with workers, with people under age 30 being especially hard hit by the increased job competition.

As the Wall Street Journal noted in its October 23 editorial, “With total employment at 144.3 million, for every three Americans over the age of 16 earning a paycheck there are two who aren’t even looking for a job. That’s an ugly portent for American prosperity.”

It’s hard to fathom how an annual influx of ever greater numbers of foreign workers will improve on this dire situation. It may very well accelerate the decline in workforce participation and increase dependence on the expanding array of government benefits as a substitute for work – both of which may trigger unforeseen consequences, including societal turbulence, followed by remedies we may prefer not to think about.

Read the full article. Read more about Today’s Grads Face Mounting Pressure From Foreign Tech Workers

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cannot find 266 potentially dangerous foreign nationals who have overstayed their visas, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

According to testimony from Rebecca Gambler, director of the Homeland Security and Justice for GAO, on May 21, 2013 before the House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, DHS identified 1,901 illegal overstays of concern in 2011. As of March 2013, 14 percent remain missing.

Of those that pose security threats, 266 could not be located, and nine individuals had been arrested.

  Read more about MISSING: 266 Illegal Overstays that ‘Pose National Security’ Risks

The Gang of Eight has stated, “this legislation does not significantly increase long-term, annual migration to the United States” and has indicated the legislation shift the United States from low-skill and chain migration to high-skill merit-based. Conspicuously, however, they have refused to provide an estimate of future flow. A conservative analysis of the legislation, with low-range estimates for the new and expanded visa programs, reveals that the proposal would dramatically increase the future flow of low-skill workers and chain migration and provide legal status and work authorization to 30 million immigrants over the next 10 years—who will then be able to bring in family members, initiating a wave of non-merit-based chain migration that will greatly increase low-skilled immigration.

Here is a shorthand way of looking at the explosive growth in the number of people who will be granted work authorization and permanent residency over the next 10 years, largely on a non-merit based track:

· An estimated 2.5 million DREAM beneficiaries of any age (including those no longer living in the country) will be eligible for citizenship in five years.

· DREAM beneficiaries will be able to bring in an unlimited number of parents, spouses, and children (not subject to any cap) and those spouses,  children, and parents will get permanent legal status in five years and be eligible for citizenship in 10.

· An estimated 800,000 illegal agricultural workers will become legal permanent residents (green card holders) in five years and will then be eligible to bring in an unlimited number of spouses and children.

· An estimated 8 million additional illegal immigrants, including recent arrivals and millions of visa overstays, will receive legal status and work authorization. These 8 million will be able to bring in their relatives as soon as 10 years from now. Those relatives, over time, will be able to bring in spouses, children, and parents.

· An estimated 4.5 million aliens awaiting employment and family-based visas under current cap limitations will be cleared in less than 10 years, not subject to the family-based annual cap (thus freeing up room for more family-based migration that is subject to the annual cap).

The bill increases the level of immigration through current and new visa systems. Here are just some examples of how the bill increases legal immigration through visas:

· The bill creates a new merit based visa, which allows for up to 250,000 visas annually. If a little over half of the visas are issued over a 10-year period, the increase in the number of immigrants would be 1,250,000.

· The bill creates a new guest worker program (W-1) for low-skilled workers with a cap of 200,000 visas annually. If a little over a half of the guest workers visas available are issued over a 10-year period, the increase in the number of immigrants would be 1,000,000.

· The bill creates a new nonimmigrant agricultural workers program (W-3 & W-4 visa) which allows up to 112,333 annually. If half of the visas are issued over a 10-year period, the increase in the number of nonimmigrants would be 561,665.

· The bill exempts Priority Workers (EB-1 under current law), STEM graduates, and spouses and children of LPRs from the employment-based visa caps. By taking the average number of immigrants in the two exempt categories over the past 10 years, the exemption will account for an additional 762,000 immigrants over 10 years.

· The bill increases the H-1B visa cap up to 180,000 with a floor of 110,000. If half of the H-1B visas are issued over a 10-year period, the increase in the number of immigrants would be 1,450,000.

· The bill leaves current employment visa caps unchanged and moderately decreases family caps, allowing 301,000 visas a year with some exemptions, but allows for unused visas from 1992 through 2013 to be recaptured. Over a 10-year period, the number of legal immigrants would be 3,879,094.

The total number of immigrants obtaining legal status from the programs listed above is 24,702,759 over a 10-year period. That number does not include other immigrant and nonimmigrant visa programs in the bill (e.g. refugee and asylum seekers, W-1 visas, W-2 visas, W-3 visas, W-4 visas), nor does it include student visas who are now allowed dual intent.

The Gang of Eight’s bill will drastically increase low-skill chain migration. Some of the chain categories are subject to an annual family-based visa cap of 161,000, including adult unmarried sons and daughters of citizens or LPRs, and married sons and daughters (under the age of 31) of U.S. citizens. However, the bill completely exempts the largest categories of chain migrants from the family- and employment-based visa caps, including spouses and children of LPRs or citizens and parents of citizens. The following illustrates how the exempt chain migration categories will dramatically increase the future flow by millions of immigrants over the next 10 years:

• An estimate 2–3 million DREAM beneficiaries are eligible for legal permanent residency and citizenship after just 5 years. After receiving LPR status, the DREAMers may bring a spouse and child through the bill’s exempt chain category and, once granted citizenship, can bring their parents as well (not subject to cap). Assuming 1 million DREAMers bring any combination of two people, the future flow of immigrants would increase by over 2 million. This does not include other chain migrants that a DREAMer may petition under the caps, including adult unmarried sons and daughters, and married sons and daughters. Subsequently, the chain migrants will have the same opportunity to petition for their relatives in the same manner as the DREAMers.

In sum, over the first decade, the total number granted will be well over 32 million (not taking into account chain migration from increased legal flow). Adding in all the various categories of nonimmigrant work visas, and the number climbs to more than 57 million. Further, because approximately 7 million illegal immigrants are on a 13-year track to citizenship, there will be a second wave of chain migration initiated just outside the 10-year window (substantially increasing the net low-skill immigration).
  Read more about Analysis of Future Flow In Gang of Eight Plan: More than 30 Million Immigrants Granted Legal Status In 10 Years, With The Ability To Bring Their Relatives

“The revised [Gang of Eight] 867-page bill contains multiple changes from the first 844-page version, released April 18, but Democrats have not announced any delay to the committee review of the complex bill that begins next week. The bill includes roughly 1.14 waivers or exemptions per page. By comparison, the 2,409-page Obamacare law includes 0.78 waivers and exemptions per page… NumbersUSA has estimated that 33 million extra people would be able to apply to live in the United States because of the immigration bill, under the terms of the original draft.”

The Senate’s “Gang of Eight” has released a new version of the immigration bill that contains 999 references to waivers, exemptions and political discretion.

The revised 867-page bill contains multiple changes from the first 844-page version, released April 18, but Democrats have not announced any delay to the committee review of the complex bill that begins next week.

The bill includes roughly 1.14 waivers or exemptions per page. By comparison, the 2,409-page Obamacare law includes 0.78 waivers and exemptions per page.

The Obamacare law contains 1,882 mentions of “unless,” “notwithstanding,” “except,” “exempt,” “waivers,” “discretion” and “may.” “Waiver” is mention 209 times in the law.

The new draft of the immigration bill — which will allow officials much control over the supply and cost of labor needed by American companies — has 85 mentions of “unless,” 150 uses of “except,” 18 inclusions of “exempt,” 92 mentions of “waiver,” 42 offers of “discretion,” 47 use of “notwithstanding” and 618 uses of “may” in the 876-page bill.

The Daily Caller subtracted mentions of “may not” from both bills’ final tally of exemptions and options.

President Barack Obama backs the bill, and told reporters Tuesday that it “is going to be a historic achievement.”

The bill has been crafted by eight senators, led by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the third-ranked Democrat in the Senate.

Alex Conant, a spokesman for Sen. Marco Rubio, the leading GOP supporter of the pending immigration bill, did not respond when asked by email if Rubio will ask for a delay to let his fellow GOP senators and their staffers read and understand the new version.

Since January, Rubio has declared that senators and outside opponents of the bill will have plenty of time to review the bill’s contents and to urge changes.

“Senator Rubio has said from the outset that we will not rush this process, and that begins at the committee level,” Conant told The Washington Post April 12.

“The Judiciary Committee must have plenty of time to debate and improve the bipartisan group’s proposal. … We believe that the more public scrutiny this legislation receives, the better it will become,” Conant said.

“We don’t see anything really coming to the [Senate] floor before, at the earliest, sometime in May,” McCain told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren April 11.

“We want to give it plenty of time.”

Jessica Brady, a spokeswoman for the Judiciary Committee, declined Wednesday to say if the Democratic-run committee would delay the bill’s review.

Instead, she forwarded April 25 remarks by committee chairman Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy.

“When we next meet, the bill will have been publicly available for three weeks. So before we vote on any aspect of it we and the public will have had the bill for some time,” he said.  The bill is extremely complex.

For example, there are 47 mentions of the term “notwithstanding,” each of which creates an exemption to the bill or to existing law. On page 339 of the new bill, a paragraph requires the amnesty be extended to illegals who voluntarily left the United States or were deported.

“Notwithstanding section 212(a)(9) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(9)), an alien’s application for an immigrant visa shall be considered if the alien was excluded, deported, removed, or departed voluntarily before the date of the enactment of this Act,” says the paragraph.

Another section allows the families of deported illegals, including family members who never visited the United States, to apply for the amnesty.

The limited-immigration group NumbersUSA has estimated that 33 million extra people would be able to apply to live in the United States because of the immigration bill, under the terms of the original draft.

The group — which wants to reduce the current annual immigration rate of 1 million — has not released an estimate of how many people could arrive under the new draft.

Advocates for the bill have highlighted at least one change in the new version, which is the addition of language that is said to plug a gap created by the bill’s immediate elimination of the current E-Verify system and its projected creation of a new E-Verify system. E-verify is used by employers to gauge whether a job applicant has the right to work in the United States.

  Read more about New immigration bill has more waivers and exceptions per page than Obamacare

Last week, a group of Republican Senators working on a GOP-led alternative to the DREAM Act released details of their plan to the Daily Caller. (Daily Caller, Nov. 15, 2012) The draft legislation, entitled the ACHIEVE Act, would put illegal aliens up to the age of 32 on a path to citizenship. (Id.)

This path to citizenship starts through the creation of new non-immigrant visa category, the W-visa. Under the Republican plan, illegal aliens would be eligible for a W-1 visa if they:

• have either:
  • completed high-school and are admitted to college or earned a college degree, or
  • completed high school and are enlisted in or have completed four years of military service,
• have entered the country before the age of 14,
• have lived in the U.S. continuously for five years,
• have not committed a felony, two misdemeanors with a jail term of over 30 days, or a crime of moral turpitude,
• are not subject to a final order of removal ,
• pay a $525 fee, and
• are under the age of 28 (or 32 if they have a bachelor's degree from a U.S. university).

Once an illegal alien receives a W-1 visa, the alien has six years to obtain a bachelor's, associate's, vocational/technical, or graduate degree, or to complete four years of military service. If the alien meets this threshold, the alien is then eligible for a W-2 visa. Under a W-2 visa, an alien must then either maintain employment for 36 months, or be in enrolled in or complete a graduate degree program within four years.

Then, after the four-year period is up, an alien who has fulfilled the requirements of a W-2 visa becomes eligible for a W-3 "permanent non-immigrant" visa. Although the authors of the ACHIEVE Act say it does not provide a special pathway to citizenship, the W-3 is renewable in four-year increments, and its recipients are free to adjust status to a green card via pathways already set up under current law.

Congressional sources say retiring Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) were working on the ACHIEVE Act with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio this summer, but put the plan on hold following President Obama's announcement he would be granting deferred action and work authorization to illegal aliens under the age of 31. (Fox News, Nov. 16, 2012)The text is "a working draft of what Sen. Rubio began working on over the summer," Sen. Marco Rubio's spokesman Alex Conant confirmed with the Huffington Post.(Huffington Post, Nov. 15, 2012)

The same day the GOP draft was leaked to the Daily Caller, Sen. Rubio called for a "permanent solution" for illegal alien minors during the annual Washington Ideas Forum. (Fox News Latino, Nov. 16, 2012) "[T]he issue of kids that are in this country undocumented is not an immigration issue, it's a humanitarian one," Rubio told the audience. (Id.) Sen. Rubio's spokesman indicated he is still finalizing the timing and specifics of the legislation. (Huffington Post, Nov. 15, 2012) Read more about Republicans Leak Draft of GOP-DREAM Act

Long after they were ordered out of the country, thousands of criminal aliens from places like China, Cuba, Vietnam and Pakistan remain free in the United States to commit new crimes because their home countries refuse to take them back.

For years, this unique problem percolated under the political radar. But recent crimes by immigrant felons have lawmakers scrambling to punish nations that refuse to repatriate their own citizens. The Obama administration and many Democrats in Congress, however, are blocking punitive legislation, preferring to let the State Department handle the issue diplomatically.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, is leading the charge in Congress to change the law, pushing to withhold visas to nations that refuse to take back their own.

"I don't know why the State Department seems to take the side of foreign countries over our own American interest in the United States," Poe said, urging the U.S. to tell those countries: "Look, you take these people back or the consequence is going to be no visas for your nation."

Under a 2001 Supreme Court decision, U.S. immigration officials are only permitted to hold someone for six months after their incarceration. So when a home nation refuses to take back their national, the U.S. is required to release them -- no matter what they've done.

The issue recently came to Poe's attention after three especially heinous crimes were committed by men ordered deported years ago.

In June, a judge sentenced 22-year-old Shafiqul Islam, a Bangladeshi national, for the murder of 73-year-old Lois Decker.

"This man was a dangerous criminal," said Hudson New York District Attorney Paul Czajka. "He should not have been in the United States. At the very least, he should have been in detention."

Islam murdered Decker after serving a year for sexually assaulting a child. After his release from prison, a judge ordered Islam deported.

Bangladesh, however, refused to take him back. Because of the 2001 high court ruling, Islam stayed in the country.

"Lois had so much more living to do. She'll never see her grandchildren marry. Or see them have children. She loved her family, her friends and her church," lamented Decker's daughter Sue Call at Islam's sentencing hearing.

Police say Decker was at home when Islam broke in and strangled her to death in March. Decker taught Sunday school, volunteered at church and supported veterans' groups. Her case ignited a storm of criticism in tiny Hudson, N.Y., but it is hardly isolated. More than 50,000 criminal alien immigrants ordered deported remain in the U.S.

Those nations with the highest numbers, in order, are: Cuba, China, India, Pakistan and Vietnam.

Another example is 35-year-old Binh Thai Luc. Luc was a career thief who served an eight-year term in California state prison. A judge kicked him out of the U.S. but when Vietnam refused to take him back, he was released onto the streets of San Francisco. In March, Luc allegedly bludgeoned to death a family of five.

In Boston, a Cambodian gang member stabbed and beat 16-year-old Ashton Cline-McMurray to death with a golf club. The boy, disabled with cerebral palsy, was attacked while walking home from a football game. Originally, prosecutors charged Loeun Heng with murder, which carried a life sentence. However, in 2003 they agreed to a plea bargain, believing Heng could be deported. Last year, when he was released from prison, Cambodia refused to take him back, putting him back on the streets.

"They said he would never set foot basically on American soil again," said the boy's mother Sandra Hutchinson. "It's crazy. They're just letting him back out there to do it to somebody else." Eventually, Cambodia relented and took him back.

But these cases caught Poe's attention. His first bill introduced last year refused any visas -- student, business or tourist -- to any country that refused to repatriate their criminals. That bill went nowhere, opposed by the travel industry, the administration and Democrats in Congress

Back again in the House Immigration Subcommittee, Poe is trying again. This year, his bill only applies to visas for diplomatic staff from countries that refuse deported nationals. But many Democrats believe even that is too aggressive.

"What Poe's bill will do is throw a monkey wrench into diplomatic relations. It is a nonstarter for that reason," says immigration attorney Dave Leopold. "It makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the secretary of State and the secretary of Homeland Security to make intelligent decisions about when to stop issuing visas to countries that refuse to take their criminal alien deportees."

Poe says the State Department already has the discretion to withhold visas from offending nations, but used it only once in 2005 against Guyana. The country immediately took back its 100 citizens. His bill currently in committee would make the sanctions mandatory.

"These people don't go back. They stay here. They commit crimes. And the countries that are responsible for them don't do anything about it. It's time the United States do something about it and hold these countries accountable," said Poe. "They aren't going to have any choice if we pass this law.'

Fox News contacted Democratic members of the immigration subcommittee, but they declined interviews on the topic. Read more about Rep raises alarm after murders by illegals blocked from deportation by home countries

In a pre-St. Patrick’s Day gift to the Irish, the latest news from Capitol Hill is that Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Scott Brown (R-MA) are trying to get legislation to the Senate floor this week that would add at least 10,500 annual guest worker visas for Irish nationals. The legislation could come in the form of either an amended version of S.1983 by Sen. Schumer or S.2005 by Sen. Brown, and would double the number of E-3 visa holders to the U.S. each year. The number of workers brought into the country could grow exponentially once an unlimited number of visas are handed out to the spouses and children (up to the age of 21) of these visa holders.

This legislation not only hurts Americans because it brings in more guest workers at a time of high unemployment, it represents terrible immigration policy because it carves out a special rule for one particular nationality. Moreover, to qualify for this visa, aliens would need to meet only nominal requirements. The legislation, as amended, only requires visa recipients to have two years of work experience in a particular field, OR to have obtained a high school diploma or its equivalent. Employers are not required to look for U.S. workers first before sponsoring an E-3 visa holder.

CALL your Senators TODAY and tell them:

• You oppose S.1983 and S.2005;
• The U.S. should NOT add an additional 10,500 guest workers to compete with the already 13 million unemployed Americans seeking jobs; and
• Congress should not be in the business of carving out special rules for members of a single nationality. Congress should draft immigration law so that it is uniform in application and is blind to the home country of an alien applicant.

Find your Senators’ phone numbers http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
  Read more about Senate to Take Action on Bill to Grant 10,500 Additional Work Visas BEFORE St. Paddy’s Day!