Will H1-B immigration debacle be fixed

Date: Saturday, October 20, 2007 2:35 PM

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1773 -- 10/20/2007 >>>>>

Sometimes writers and editorialists try to do the right thing, but they get
duped. The iditorial that is appearing in small newspapers like the Palo Alto
Daily News is a prime example.

The author appears to be a pro-labor liberal that probably intended well, but
he relied on a website with faulty information called BrightFutureJobs.
I could be giving the author too much credit for good will considering his
comments on Tom Tancredo (see more on that below).

To find out more about the website in question go here:
http://www.brightfuturejobs.org/

BrightFutureJobs was founded and is directed by Donna Conroy. I'm not totally
sure what her goal or purpose is, but it has something to do with ending
discrimination against Americans -- which is definitely a worthwhile goal. Go
to the website to see if you can figure what she is all about.
Most of the webpages are sprinkled with Conroy's thoughts about how H-1B
allows discriminatory employment practices -- and she doesn't let facts get in
her way! You will also be given many opportunities to give money to the
organization -- perhaps some of that money goes to efforts at fooling gullible
journalists.

Donna Conroy sent a newsletter on behalf of BrightFutureJobs with gobs of
braggadocio about where the writer got his information for the column.
Since Conroy claims credit for the column I think it's fair game to blame her
for the results. In this case the fault may have been just as much with the
one who provided the information as with the one who wrote it.

This editorial is quite insightful. What's amazing about this
column is that he was able to glean this information from our
web site. He got every point we were making. In contrast,
some journalists are confused forever. Thomas D. Elias saw how
Brightfuturejobs.org is distinguishing itself.

I'm going to do this newsletter somewhat differently -- text of the article
will appear with regular indentation, and my comments will be delineated with
an offset and the title ">>>> FACT".

Norm Matloff just sent out a criticism of the editorial which you can read
here:

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/WrongEliasColumn.txt

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.highlandnews.net/articles/2007/10/18/opinion/04elias.txt

or

http://www.paloaltodailynews.com/article/2007-10-18-10-18-07

Will H1-B immigration debacle be fixed?

By Thomas D. Elias

It's an open question now whether the egregious abuse of H-1B immigration
visas by large corporations will ever be fixed.

That's because a small organization dedicated to helping American workers get
jobs for which American companies are now importing foreign immigrants has
uncovered a 2006 document demonstrating that letting foreigners take jobs
Americans could fill is in fact the policy of the Bush Administration.

States the U.S. Department of Labor's Strategic Plan for the fiscal years
2006 to 2011, "H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker
wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the
foreign worker." The Federal Register adds that "the statute does not require
employers to demonstrate that there are no available U.S. workers or to test
the labor market for U.S. workers as required under the permanent labor
certification program."

That damning language was uncovered by Donna Conroy of the organization
Brightfuturejobs.org.

>>>> FACT: Elias is referring to the following document, which

I was able to find thanks to the BrightFutureJobs website:

http://www.dol.gov/_sec/stratplan/strat_plan_2006-2011.pdf

I haven't seen it before so let's say for the sake of argument
that despite it being on the web, and indexed by every major
search engine in the world, Conroy is the first person to
discover it. Let's also assume that Elaine Chao wanted to hide
it from the public so she thought the best way to do that was
to post it on the internet.

Elias is getting a couple things confused. This "strategic"
plan is nothing new for H-1B or for EB green cards. All that
Chao is actually saying is that the H-1B policies that were
passed by Congress in 1990 are still in effect. No surprise
there since Chao can't change laws that Congress passed. The
fact that employers don't have to show a preference for US
workers when hiring H-1Bs has only been a secret to most of
the American public -- not to those who study H-1B.

It seems to confirm what thousands of displaced American engineers and
technical workers have believed for years: Large U.S. companies including
Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and other Silicon
Valley stalwarts bring in thousands of skilled foreign workers each year not
because they can't find American workers to fill their jobs, but because they
can pay the immigrants less.

The actual intent of H-1B visas is to allow American companies to recruit
immigrant labor when they can't find sufficient qualified U.S. citizens or
legal residents to fill open positions. Each year, the electronic giants of
the Silicon Valley lead a lobbying effort to get Congress to expand the limit
on H-1Bs from 65,000 to some far higher figure.

>>>> FACT: Actually the yearly cap on H-1B is now 85, 000, not 65,000.
The 85,000 number doesn't include exempts, which pushes the
actual number of visas issued well above 100,000.

These companies aim not merely to fill jobs for which they can't find U.S.
citizens and green card holders, but to feather their financial nests, as the
Labor Department documents indicate.

What happened early this year provides good evidence of who is really coming
in on H-1B's: It is not principally Ph.D.'s and other highly educated persons.
Rather, it is primarily factory workers, low-level draftsmen and the like.

The evidence is clear: Out of 132,000 applications received on the first day
they were accepted for the 2007 quota of 65,000 visas, just 12,989 were from
applicants with master's degrees or higher. That meant the vast bulk of
applications came from workers with bachelor's degrees or less. These are not
high-level researchers and software engineers, as they are often billed. They
may be laboratory technicians or other skilled laborers, but there is no
demonstrated shortage of Americans workers for those jobs.

Of course, the Labor Department has made it clear to the companies they don't
have to demonstrate any shortage of U.S. workers; they can hire all the cheap
labor they can somehow bring into this country.

It's not that the foreign workers they bring in lack merit. In fact, most are
dedicated employees and become taxpaying contributors to American society. But
the many Americans either bumped out of their jobs by this Bush-sanctioned
corporate welfare are also dedicated employees and taxpayers.

>>>> FACT: Elias wrote that bad H-1B is a policy of the Bush

administration, which is false. H-1B is a law passed by
Congress. Elias is showing an appalling lack of
understanding of our legislative process. I'm not even
sure Elias knows which Bush he is talking about either
since it was George HW Bush who signed H-1B into law in 1990.
Could Elias be confusing big Daddy Bush with Dubya? If so,
he is giving Dubya way to much credit!

Interestingly, no one has heard Colorado's Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, now
running for President on a jingoistic anti-immigrant platform, complain about
the government-backed misuse of H-1Bs. Nor any of the other groups now trying
loudly to tighten up both the Mexican and Canadian borders.

>>>> FACT: I am greatly offended that he called Tancredo a jingoistic

anti-immigrant. That is totally untrue -- Tancredo has made it
clear many times that he welcomes LEGAL immigrants. I emailed
Elias to protest his characterization of Tancredo and this is how
he responded back: "You can be as offended as you like at what I
call Mr. Tancredo. He is what he is and I have seen his ilk many
times before."

Elias is also wrong is his assertion that Tancredo hasn't taken a
position against H-1B. He has spoken out against H-1B so often I
really don't want to waste my time with this one.

What Elias should have written, and it would have been factually
correct is the following: "Only one candidate for president has
spoken out against expanding the H-1B program -- Tom Tancredo.
Every other candidate from both major parties wants to expand
H-1B and EB."

Rather, it is two liberal Democratic politicians, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin
and New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell, who are carrying similar bills to wipe out
the Labor Department language that now subverts the plain intent of the H-1B
visas.

For now, companies that discriminate against American citizens when hiring are
legally protected by the Bush administration, which kept its disgraceful and
possibly illegal rules quiet until Conroy discovered them.

>>>> FACT: Companies are not protected from discrimination laws just

because they hire H-1Bs. H-1B explicitly says that all
Title VII laws on discrimination apply to H-1B. I have argued
many times that Title VII doesn't adequately protect Americans
from discrimination based on nationality, but that's actually
a separate issue from H-1B.

That said, H-1B does help to facilitate discrimination by
giving employers lots of cheap young fresh blood to exploit,
but the law in no way condones discrimination.

Donna Conroy claims that H-1B allows discrimination. I and
many others have tried to correct her but she simply refuses
to acknowledge the facts. In her newsletter Conroy stated
that "some journalists are confused forever". That's well
said, and it could just as easily be said that some activists
are confused forever!

Companies are not protected from discrimination laws just because they hire H-
1Bs. All our laws on discrimination apply to H-1B and the regulations
explicitly say so. Having said so, as we all know employers do break laws and
often get away with it. Let me reiterate -- there is NOTHING IN H-1B THAT
ALLOWS OR CONDONES DISCRIMINATION.

Only if the Durbin-Pascrell legislation passes will citizens and legal
immigrants have an opportunity to compete for the top dollar, white collar
jobs at stake here.

>>>> FACT: The Durbin-Pascrell bill make a few incremental improvements

on the existing regulations, but they won't change the fact that
employers can hire H-1Bs instead of qualified and willing
Americans. The bills don't change the number of H-1Bs allowed into
the U.S., and they don't make it any easier for Americans to file
lawsuits.

And even if their bills should succeed in Congress, they would still need the
signature of President Bush to end illegal discrimination against Americans
and green card holders. Of course, if Bush wants to fix the problem, he need
not wait for Congress to act. All he'd have to do is pick up his telephone and
order his labor secretary to change the rules back to what they are supposed
to be.

>>>> FACT: Bush cannot fix the problem by making a phone call to Chao.

He isn't a dictator (at least not yet :-) and can't change laws
without Congressional approval. Nothing has changed since the
second Bush took office. For the most part, H-1B laws haven't
changed much since 1990, and when it did change it was because
Congress changed it.

He's had years to do this, but has shown no inclination because he knows who
his campaign donors have been. So it's unlikely he would sign such a bill even
if it reached him.

Which means there will probably be no change in the current anti-American
discrimination by American companies until there is a new President.

>>>> FACT: Elias seems to think that a new president will solve the

H-1B problem. This shows a certain amount of ignorance of our
legislative process. Again, Elias seems to think that all that
needs to be done to correct the injustices of the H-1B program
is for the president to give a phone call to the Secretary of
Labor. I wish it were really that simple!

Presidents don't write laws, Congress does.
Bush is terrible on the H-1B issue and his desire to expand H-1B
is shared by every other candidate but Tancredo. If there is
ever an improvement in the H-1B program it will probably be
despite whoever is our next president.

Elias is author of the current book "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most
Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,"
now available in an updated second edition. His e-mail address is
tdelias@aol.com.

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