H-1Bs go to K Street
H-1Bs go to K Street
Date: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 3:12 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
April 26, 2006 No. 1466
A new organization of called Immigration Voice (IV) has been formed to
lobby the U.S. government. Most of the members are foreign nationals on
H-1B visas. They want the U.S. government to issue more green cards so that
H-1Bs can gain permanent residency. Immigration Voice seems to be a single
issue advocacy group because they don't mention H-1B, however, they are
supporting the Specter bill in the Senate that has a massive increase in
Green Card visas as well as H-1B and a new visa called F-4.
H-1B is a temporary visa that can last for up to six years, but due to a
new 7th Year Extension rule visas can be renewed indefinitely until the
visa holder obtains a green card. As long as the green card application is
in the cue the H-1B can stay. There are limits to the number of green cards
issued per year, and that is what IV wants to change. As Dr. Philip Martin
from UCDavis wrote, "There Is Nothing More Permanent Than Temporary Foreign
Workers." To read Martin's classic paper go to:
http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/back501.html
The stated goal from their website:
http://immigrationvoice.org/
Our big initiative currently is towards addressing delays
and other flaws in the employment based green card process.
Immigration Voice formed very quickly and they are showing that they are
very serious about lobbying the U.S. government. They hired a professional
lobbying firm to represent them called Quinn Gillespie & Associates LLC. IV
also is talking with the infamous lobbyist Rick Swartz. Norman Matloff
described Swartz as a "pro-immigration lobbying kingpin who has represented
both industry firms such as Microsoft and also the ISN". Mark Krikorian at
CIS is usually low key, but not when he wrote about Rick Swartz:
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/markoped033104.html
And then there's the National Immigration Forum, the umbrella
organization for high-immigration political advocacy, which
works closely with sympathetic Republicans. But NIF is not like
the conventional lobbying coalitions that exist on numerous
issues. It was cofounded by the National Lawyers Guild in the
1980s, back when the Guild was a Soviet front group. The group's
first head was Rick Swartz, a leftist attorney who cut his teeth
advocating for Haitian illegal aliens and who, during a 1981
Senate hearing, likened the United States to Nazi Germany.
Most of the Immigration Voice activities seem to center around fund raising
to pay for their lobbying efforts. They aren't talking about chump change
either. Here are their contributions so far, which must be reported since
they are applying for 501-C(4) status.
http://immigrationvoice.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=44
Total Contribution $90,640.10
Target $200,000
Percentage of Target Met 45.3%
When I started reading the Washington Post article below the first question
that came to my mind was the legality of H-1Bs and other foreign nationals
to actively lobby our government. The DOJ answers that very definitively:
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fara/q_A.htm
Foreign Agents Registration Act
Q. Does the Act limit an agent's lobbying and publishing
informational materials (propaganda) for a Foreign
principal?
A. No, the Act requires only registration.
The article below is written by Mitra Kalita. She was born in the U.S. by
parents who immigrated to the U.S. from India. Her bio can be read here:
http://www.pbs.org/searching/aaw_mkalita.html
Kalita does a good job of reporting what Immigration Voice is all about but
the article is not objective, and therefore should be considered lousy
journalism. It's a rather long article with quotes from many advocates for
increasing immigration but not one sentence from somebody that disagrees
with the IV agenda. This statement about IV's quest for more green cards
for H-1B visa holders goes totally unchallenged:
"This is a sympathetic story," said Nick Maduros, a lobbyist
for Quinn Gillespie. "For this group, their issues are very
technical and are frankly not that controversial, but they
have been overshadowed ."
>>>>> THE BIG QUESTION <<<<<
Immigration Voice raises many questions but one stands up in my mind as the
most important:
WHY AFTER 16 YEARS OF H-1B HAVE AMERICAN WORKERS FAILED TO ORGANIZE
THEMSELVES TO FIGHT FOR THEIR JOBS?
There have been many attempts at forming organizations but all of them are
struggling. In all their years of existence they haven't been able to raise
even a fraction of the money IV has raised in just four months. ZaZona.com
as well as many others are operating on such small shoestring budgets we
are continually struggling just to survive.
Why do citizens of the United States lack the passion we are seeing from
foreign nationals that are here both legally and illegally?
One thing for sure, we shouldn't waste time griping about Immigration Voice
because they are playing the political game according to our own rules. If
we lose this one, who's fault is it?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/25/AR2006042501963_pf.html
Skilled Immigrants Turn to K Street
High-Tech Workers Awaiting Green Cards Hire Lobbyists, Hit the Hill
By S. Mitra Kalita
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 26, 2006; D01
On the December day when Congress killed a budget amendment that might have
allowed him to become an American a little sooner, Aman Kapoor started a
movement.
He did not march through streets, carry signs, wave a flag from here or
there. He did not walk off the job or file out of school. The computer
programmer simply went online to a message board tracked by thousands of
people in his predicament: highly skilled foreigners waiting years for
their green cards.
"I think we can do better and really create the impact with organized
effort," he wrote. "To achieve this we need a group of individuals who have
shown commitment and motivation in this forum."
The next night, a dozen people living across the United States shed their
Internet handles -- Kapoor's was "WaldenPond," a nod to his hero, Henry
David Thoreau -- and addressed one another by name on a conference call
that lasted an hour. Today, just four months later, the organization they
dubbed Immigration Voice boasts 3,000 members; a fundraising goal of
$200,000; and, most notably, a partnership with a high-powered lobbying
firm, Quinn Gillespie & Associates LLC.
The group's transformation from an insular circle to a politically active
movement offers a window into an alternative immigrant campaign being waged
as the Senate this week resumes its work on immigration laws.
Most members and all the core organizers of Immigration Voice hail from
India, though Chinese membership numbers in the hundreds and is on the
rise. Most arrived on an international student visa or a visa known as the
H-1B, reserved for highly skilled workers who can stay for up to six years
-- unless an employer sponsors their green cards, which grant immigrants
permanent residence in the United States and the right to live and work
here freely. Over the past decade, the largest numbers of H-1Bs have been
awarded to high-technology workers from India and China.
Thus, while the passage of a strict border-security bill introduced by Rep.
F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) mobilized many other immigrants in
December, members of this high-tech group had their eye on another: a
budget reconciliation bill that, in the Senate version, would have allowed
those waiting in line for a green card to proceed even if the quota had
been exhausted. The provision was cut in conference committee, stirring
many to action and leading to the founding of Immigration Voice.
While hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets to get
Congress's attention, Immigration Voice took a decidedly different
approach. Shortly after the group was established, Kapoor and other
volunteers began interviewing lobbyists, relying mostly on Google searches
and data from the Center for Public Integrity's Web site.
"If it was not going to be big, it would not be worth the effort," said
Kapoor, who works for Florida State University and has traveled to
Washington nine times in the past three months. "Most of us have reached
that point, having waited for eight or nine years, where individual lives
are on hold."
Neither Quinn Gillespie nor Immigration Voice would disclose the amount
being paid for the firm's services. Kapoor said it is "less than five
figures."
"This is a sympathetic story," said Nick Maduros, a lobbyist for Quinn
Gillespie. "For this group, their issues are very technical and are frankly
not that controversial, but they have been overshadowed ."
Immigration Voices also enlisted the help of Rick Swartz, who has his own
firm and has long been a leading lobbyist for immigration groups. Swartz
gathered members of the group at his home one January weekend for a crash
course in American politics, teaching them to position themselves as the
"new Cubans for the Republicans."
Although their numbers are far smaller -- fewer than 2 million Indians live
in the United States, according to the 2000 Census -- the group is among
the more affluent immigrant communities. And because their numbers are
smaller than those of Hispanics, they are trying to focus on other ways
they can exert power -- through their wealth, their positions of influence
in the high-tech and business communities, and their alliances with more
established advocacy groups such as one for Indian physicians and an Indian
political action committee.
While the immigrant marchers' demands have covered a range of issues,
including allowing immigrants to gain legal status and eventually
citizenship, the members of this association are more narrowly focused:
They want Congress to pass measures that would end the years-long wait for
a green card. In fact, they warn that efforts to enable millions of illegal
immigrants to remain here permanently would result in the same bureaucratic
nightmare legal immigrants are now facing.
"If you're going to reform, reform across the board," said Bharati
Mandapati, who oversees content for the group, which means she has learned
how to word and pitch legislative amendments.
The group has refrained from taking a stand on the fate of the undocumented
workers, though it monitors chatter on its Web site to ensure that
frustrated high-tech workers don't disparage lower-skilled laborers such as
landscapers and restaurant workers. It also has stayed mum on raising the
cap on H-1Bs, the visas that made most of their passages possible.
Under a proposal introduced by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the number of
employment-based green cards being issued would increase from 140,000 to
290,000. Currently, no one country is supposed to take up more than 7
percent of the allotment, though unused green cards can be redistributed to
countries that have already met their quota. That has made possible
migrations in excess of 7 percent from nations such as India, China, Mexico
and the Philippines. Under the proposal, the per-country cap would be
increased to a hard and fast 10 percent. Proponents say this would prevent
one country from dominating the category and would retain jobs for
native-born Americans.
But Mandapati, a California-based economist, argues that the restriction
would hurt the United States because the demand for skills changes. "It
just so happens that computer technology and certain technical skills are
in great demand here and all over the world. It just so happens that there
are two countries that have invested a lot of resources in educating people
in these fields . . . India and China."
About a half-million immigrants are caught in the green-card backlog, some
as they wait for Labor Department approval or because quotas have been
exceeded. In that time, they cannot be promoted or given substantial pay
increases because that would mean a change in job description and salary.
They turn to Web sites to compare their wait times with others, and their
Internet handles, such as "stucklabor" and "waiting_labor," exude their
frustration.
During meetings on Capitol Hill, Maduros and at least one Immigration Voice
representative lay out the group's platform, weaving in the personal
stories of members. Shilpa Ghodgaonkar, a Germantown housewife, has become
a staple anecdote -- and a frequent visitor on the Hill.
For four years, she and her husband have been waiting for their green
cards. Ghodgaonkar's husband arrived on an H-1B visa, and she followed as
his dependent, unauthorized to work here. To pass the time, she learned to
cook. Then she volunteered as a career counselor in Montgomery County. Last
year, she earned her MBA from George Washington University. In December,
around the time Kapoor sent out his e-mail plea for mass mobilization,
Ghodgaonkar had run out of options.
"I just couldn't keep quiet anymore," Ghodgaonkar said. "I cannot be
depressed anymore."
She keeps a spreadsheet that lays out appointment times and the senators'
offices she has visited or still plans to: Specter, Frist, Schumer,
Brownback, Bingaman, Feinstein, Feingold. Wednesdays bring a weekly call
with Quinn Gillespie. And every few nights, there are conference calls
among Immigration Voice's core team.
Now the group plans to closely watch the debate resuming in the Senate
Judiciary Committee. Earlier this month, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.)
proposed amendments with all of the group's provisions. Other lawmakers
confirm that they are still meeting with the group to hear their concerns.
Immigration Voice leaders say the past few months have focused and
politicized Indian immigrants in a way that was not apparent in the past.
"There is a very 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' quality" about the current
effort, Mandapati said. "It's been a journey, a loss of naivete and getting
to know about American politics."
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