21st Century Homesteading Act
21st Century Homesteading Act
Date: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 2:51 PM
H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
www.ZaZona.com
When someone forwarded me an email that was sent by North Dakota Senator,
Byron L. Dorgan, I didn't believe it. I figured it was just another junk
email joke.
In that email he described an H-1B Homesteading act that is modeled on the
Homestead Act of 1862. This act would give H-1Bs 160 acres or more of land
in North Dakota to live on so that they could solve their "out-migration"
problem.
Just to prove to myself that this was a sick email joke I went to Tomas.gov
to look up 21st Century Homesteading Act.
MUCH TO MY HORROR IT WAS NO JOKE!
http://thomas.loc.gov/
Just enter "21st Century Homesteading Act" into the search engine and you
can see S. 1342 in all it's glory.
If you remember, president Bush wants to stop the use of H-1B funds to train
unemployed engineers and programmers. This bill would use some of that
training money to buy land for H-1Bs! The money will also be used to get
jobs for H-1Bs that are given land. Why aren't American's demanding equal
treatment?
This homestead act is heralded as the "brainchild of the Jamestown-based
South Central Dakota Regional Council". They claim that once H-1Bs are given
free land they will move there and attract high-tech companies. The
promoters of this homesteading act do have a major problem. Since the
companies aren't already in North Dakota there can't be a shortage of
workers. Delore Zimmerman of CEO Praxis calls this problem a difficulty that
"lies in the normal conditions attached to a work visa. Perhaps she can
persuade (i.e. bribe) fellow brainchild Dorgan to change the H-1B law to
allow homesteading.
This bill was rejected in 2001 but Dorgan said he will re-introduce it in
January 2003.
The SCDRC has earned their place on the Skunks page at:
http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/Skunks.htm#SCDRC
Dear [name removed by request]:
Thank you for contacting me about S. 1342, the 21st Century Homesteading
Act.
I introduced S. 1342, which would have required some H1B visas
to be used in rural areas that are suffering from out-migration. Some North
Dakotans originally raised this idea with me and I thought it was a creative
approach to the out-migration issue. I worked hard to get bipartisan
support for this approach so that we could make this idea a reality.
Unfortunately, with a dramatic slowdown in the technological economy and
other resistance to S. 1342, this bill was stalled in the Senate. We needed
to find a broader approach to bring more industry to North Dakota. That’s
why introduced S. 1860, the New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act, with
Senator Chuck Hagel.
The State of North Dakota and the federal government need to work together
to try and find new solutions to increase the standard of living in our
state, as well as to address the problem of out-migration of people and
resources from our rural areas. S. 1860 seeks to renew the spirit of the
original Homestead Act of 1862 to attract new residents and businesses to
these rural areas. Back then, the federal government offered citizens 160
acres of land. We don't have more land to offer, but we can develop new
incentives for those who are willing to locate in rural counties.
S. 1860 was not considered during the 107th Congress, but I plan to
reintroduce this legislation when Congress reconvenes in January.
Thanks again for contacting me.
Sincerely,
Byron L. Dorgan
http://www.ndonline.com/tribwebpage/news/feb2001/226200161117.html
Sunday, February 25, 2001
Hoping for new homesteaders
LAUREN DONOVAN, Bismarck Tribune
JAMESTOWN -- The last time homesteaders rushed North Dakota, it was for 160
acres of prairie dirt and a chance to start a new life.
In a new millennium, they'd come to work with hardware wired to the world.
They'd come from places like Bulgaria, Russia and India. They'd be
university educated, looking for a chance to start a new life.
It's an old story made new. The plow is now a computer.
They'd come to towns that weren't there for the first wave of homesteaders.
Towns like Carrington, Ashley, Linton, Edgeley. And by their numbers, they
would staunch the flow of people who've left those towns in the last
decades.
A lot of people in a nine-county area between two of the state's great
rivers -- the Missouri and the Red -- believe that revitalization could
come, if Congress enacts the 21st Century Homesteading Act.
The act would make North Dakota and five other states each a pilot project
to get 5,000 special immigration visas for people with highly developed
computer-related skills, along with $1 million in incentives.
It'll come up for consideration in March.
If it passes -- and with six states now involved, there's great hope to
think this expanded version will -- the nine-county region represented by
the South Central Dakota Regional Council plans to be ready. The counties
are Emmons, McIntosh, Stutsman, Eddy, Dickey, Foster, Logan, LaMoure and
Wells.
Becky Meidinger, Ashley development coordinator, said, "After this passes,
we'll wrap up our paperwork and be the first ones in Washington."
The nine counties have already lost more than 40 percent of their population
since 1960.
The clock is ticking. Loudly.
Meidinger figures a new wave of homesteaders so highly trained it would spin
the heads of national and international computer-based companies in North
Dakota's direction could have a profound affect on the region.
"It would keep our main streets alive," she said.
Just like the first homestead rush, the first wave would bring on a second
wave, the business owners with goods and services, and then a third rush,
the professionals, the doctors, the lawyers.
Meidinger said, "We've already done the math. With that much more
population, Ashley would need 10 more city blocks."
Jason Dockter, who manages TechLink and Web Media in Ashley, said it's as
simple as do or die.
"We're either going to change or die. That's it," he said.
Bryan Miller, Carrington community coordinator, said, "What we need in
Carrington is more people. If we bring in average paying jobs, we're just
robbing Peter to pay Paul. People just go from Cenex to work at the assembly
plant."
The regional planning council is already working with CEO Praxis Inc., of
Grand Forks, to recruit both the technically trained foreigners and the
companies looking for their skills.
Delore Zimmerman of CEO Praxis named the visa-based business plan Global
TeleUnity. He envisions a computer-based technology center in each of the
nine counties, with something like 500 visa workers available for each
center.
His contacts with expanding information technology companies in other states
have already made one thing perfectly clear, he said.
"They aren't going to come here without that kind of work force," Zimmerman
said. "This is the hammer. This is what the industry really wants."
Congress, partly in response to the computer industry's threat that it will
move work to the workers if it can't bring the workers to America, already
provides some 115,000 visas for foreigners with a minimum of a bachelor's
degree, said Eric Hoberg, executive director of the regional planning
council, headquartered in Jamestown.
"We came up with the idea to go to Congress to give us an allocation of
those visas," Hoberg said.
Zimmerman said jobs in information technology are split 80-20. While 80
percent of workers are minimally trained or untrained, the most critical
mass of 20 percent are highly trained.
North Dakota lacks a recruitment edge because it can't deliver the upper 20
percent. The visas would do that.
"We're trying to get that 20 percent of highly trained people out here,"
Zimmerman said. "It's not going to be an easy situation. The hard part's
going to be putting it all together."
Part of the difficulty lies in the normal conditions attached to a work
visa.
Immigrants can only come for actual jobs that have been widely advertised,
to ensure that the work doesn't go to a foreigner when there's a U.S.
citizen already available.
Zimmerman said there are still something like 200,000 informational
technology jobs waiting to be filled in the country. Microsoft already
employs 9 percent of its workers under the visa program, which lets the
workers stay a minimum of three years.
"In today's economy, talent is everything," he said.
To a Bulgarian university graduate, facing an economy that might pay him
$1,200 a year, a much higher paying job in America has all the allure that
it did a century ago.
"They want to create their own destiny in America," Zimmerman said.
The 21st Century Homesteading Act, introduced by Sen. Byron Dorgan of North
Dakota, originally included only North Dakota, Alaska and Mississippi.
Momentum petered out in the waning days of the Clinton administration.
The new version of the act adds Texas, Florida, South Dakota and adds $6
million in funding to a pilot-state concept.
Zimmerman said if it's successful, it could lead to a national rural
allocation.
To qualify, the nine counties in on the project must sign resolutions of
support and declarations of need, as well as develop incentive packages for
the foreigners and training for people already living in the counties.
Each of the nine counties already put $10,000 toward the project.
The new wave of homesteaders could bring a new cultural diversity to the
region.
Meidinger said people approach that prospect with interest.
When she held a meeting with about 140 Ashley residents to talk about a
separate joint venture with a technology company in India, she heard the
outcome of open minds.
"The first thing the grocer said was he was going to have to add a whole
line of Indian food," she said.
http://minneapolisfed.org/pubs/fedgaz/00-10/nd.cfm
State Roundups
North Dakota
Round 'em up—your own cattle, that is
October 2000
Cattle ranchers are losing their beef, and it's not being taken from meat
lockers. Rustlers have been stalking and stealing cattle from open fields,
leaving behind faded tire tracks and wounded pocketbooks.
In early summer, rustlers got away with $100,000 worth of cattle from the
National Grasslands in the western part of the state. The increase in demand
for beef and decrease in supply have raised prices and made rustling
profitable. Prices are up 8 percent above last year and up almost 22 percent
since 1996.
Despite reward offers, officials have not been successful in catching anyone
red-handed. North Dakota officials believe a band of rustlers in the
Badlands uses spotters with radios and motorcycles to circle the cows and
load them onto semi-trucks in the darkness. Officials are reportedly using
new strategies to combat thefts, such as DNA testing and placing computer
chips in cows.
High-tech homesteading may slow population decline
North Dakota is beginning a project that could take years of work, but in
the long run have a positive impact on the state's population and economy.
The brainchild of the Jamestown-based South Central Dakota Regional Council,
the 21st Century Homesteading Act's goal is to lure 2,500 foreign high-tech
workers to nine rural North Dakota counties. It is anticipated that these
workers will attract high-tech companies to the region and reverse the
downward trend in population and boost local economies.
>From 1980 to 1990 these nine counties lost between 8 percent and 16 percent
of their residents. This is roughly the equivalent of the Fargo-Moorhead
area losing 15,000 to 20,000 residents.
The plan is for workers to receive H-1B visas, which are good for six years.
Currently, 115,000 H-1B visas are granted annually throughout the country
for foreign workers with highly specialized training and skills. Previously,
only 65,000 of these visas were issued each year, but Congress raised the
limit for a four-year period in 1998 to meet a labor shortage in the
high-tech industry.
21st Century Homesteading Act (Introduced in Senate)
S 1342 IS
107th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1342
To allocate H-1B visas for demonstration projects in rural America.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
August 2, 2001
Mr. DORGAN (for himself and Mr. STEVENS) introduced the following bill;
which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
A BILL
To allocate H-1B visas for demonstration projects in rural America.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `21st Century Homesteading Act' .
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds that--
(1) rural areas are suffering from--
(A) an out-migration of workers and loss of population at a significantly
higher rate than the rest of the United States; and
(B) higher rates of poverty and unemployment than the rest of the United
States;
(2) rural areas have not enjoyed the same growth in the technology industry
as other areas of the United States;
(3) recruiting high-skilled workers to rural areas has been particularly
difficult; and
(4) in order to allow rural areas to participate fully in the unprecedented
economic prosperity of the rest of the United States, high-skilled workers
have to be recruited specially to these areas of the United States.
SEC. 3. DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS FOR RURAL AMERICA.
(a) ESTABLISHMENT OF PROGRAM-
(1) COORDINATION OF USE OF H-1B FEES WITH DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH-TECH JOBS-
There is established a program under which the Secretary of Agriculture
shall conduct up to 6 demonstration projects involving the employment of
H-1B workers in rural areas, which projects shall serve to coordinate the
use of employer-paid immigration fees with the development of high-tech
employment opportunities in those areas.
(2) GRANT AUTHORITY-
(A) AUTHORIZATION- Subject to the availability of appropriations, the
Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to implement the program established
by paragraph (1) through the award of grants to economic development
planning districts in rural areas.
(B) APPLICATION PROCEDURES- Each economic development planning district
desiring a grant under this section shall submit an application to the
Secretary of Agriculture at such time, in such manner, and accompanied by or
containing such information as the Secretary shall reasonably require.
(C) CALCULATION OF GRANT AMOUNT- The amount of each grant awarded under this
paragraph to an economic development planning district in a fiscal year
shall equal the total amount of fees paid by employers under section
214(c)(9) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1184(c)(9)) in
that fiscal year with respect to the employment in that district of H-1B
workers described in section 4(a).
(D) DESIGNATION OF GRANT APPLICANT AND RECIPIENT- For each economic
development planning district, the Secretary of Agriculture shall designate
a single entity for purposes of applying for and receiving grant funds under
this section.
(3) USES OF GRANT FUNDS- Grants awarded under paragraph (2) shall be
available only for providing education, training, equipment, and
infrastructure in connection with the employment of H-1B workers within that
district.
(b) MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING- For purposes of eligibility for a
demonstration project under the program established by this section, the
designated planning district may enter into a memorandum of understanding
with 1 or more economic development planning districts in an adjacent State.
(c) ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLANNING DISTRICT DEFINED- In this section, the
term `economic development planning district' means an area designated by
the Secretary of Agriculture that meets following criteria:
(1) LOCATION OF DISTRICTS- The district is situated in a State that shares
an international border with Canada.
(2) RESOLUTION OF SUPPORT- The counties or municipalities, or corporations
established pursuant to Public Law 92-203, as amended, that comprise the
district have signed a resolution of support to bring high-tech development
into the district.
(3) DECLARATION OF NEED- The district has executed a declaration of need
confirming that the district has experienced--
(A) an outmigration of at least 20 percent of its population over the past
30 years;
(B) unemployment rates or poverty rates that are substantially above the
national average rate for unemployment or poverty, respectively; or
(C) has a population that is 10 percent or more Native American.
(4) PARTNERSHIP WITH INDUSTRY OR INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION- The
district has established a partnership with industry, or an institution of
higher education, to recruit high-skilled workers into the district.
(5) INCENTIVE PACKAGE- The district has developed an incentive package for
high-skilled workers, including job offers, and other financial benefits.
(6) TRAINING PROGRAM- The district has established a training program for
workers living in the district.
SEC. 4. ALLOCATION OF H-1B VISAS.
(a) IN GENERAL- Effective October 1, 2001, of the total number of aliens who
may be issued visas or otherwise provided nonimmigrant status under section
101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act each fiscal year,
not to exceed 12,000 aliens may be issued H-1B visas or otherwise provided
nonimmigrant status under that section for employment in demonstration
projects conducted under the program established by section 3, of which
number not to exceed 2,000 aliens may be accorded such status for employment
in any single demonstration project conducted under that program.
(b) H-1B NONIMMIGRANT PETITION FEES-
(1) ESTABLISHMENT OF ACCOUNT- There is established in the general fund of
the Treasury of the United States a separate account, which shall be known
as the `Twenty-first Century Homesteading Account'.
(2) DEPOSIT OF FEES- Notwithstanding section 286(s) of the Immigration and
Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1356(s)), fees collected under section 214(c)(9)
of that Act (8 U.S.C. 1184(c)(9)) with respect to the employment of H-1B
workers described in subsection (a) shall be deposited as offsetting
receipts into the account.
(3) USE OF FEES- Fees deposited into the account shall remain available to
the Secretary of Agriculture until expended to carry out demonstration
projects conducted under the program established by section 3.
SEC. 5. STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION.
Nothing in this Act shall supersede, amend, or repeal the procedures under
which an employer must file an application with the Secretary of Labor for
an H-1B visa for a nonimmigrant in a specialty occupation.
SEC. 6. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act :
(1) H-1B VISA- The term `H-1B visa' means a visa issued under section
101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act .
(2) H-1B WORKER- The term `H-1B worker' means an alien who holds a valid
H-1B visa or who otherwise has been provided nonimmigrant status under
section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act .
(3) INSTITUTION OF HIGHER EDUCATION- The term `institution of higher
education' has the meaning given the term in section 101(a) of the Higher
Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1001(a))).
(4) NATIVE AMERICAN- The term `Native American' means--
(A) an Indian, as defined in section 4(d) of the Indian Self-Determination
and Education Assistance Act (25 U.S.C. 450b(d)); and
(B) an Alaska Native, within the meaning provided for the term `Native' in
section 3(b) of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (43 U.S.C. 1602(b)).
(5) RURAL AREA- The term `rural area' means an area that is located--
(A) outside a standard metropolitan statistical area; or
(B) within a community that has a population of 50,000 individuals or fewer.
Help to Keep ZaZona.com Online
Donate to the Cause at
http://www.zazona.com/Donations.htm
To Subscribe or Unsubcribe send an email to
Back to archives