H-1Bs and illegal immigration
H-1Bs and illegal immigration
Date: Monday, February 18, 2008 10:57 PM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1821 -- 2/18/2008 >>>>>
So just how hard is it for someone to come to the U.S. on an H-1B visa and
then stay here after the visa goes out of status? The correct answer is:
not difficult at all! It may be even easier than walking across our porous
border.
Speaking of our border, it seems that whenever there is talk about illegal
immigration, the center of the conversation is always on Mexico, or in rare
cases Canada. There are other ways of coming here illegally, like for instance
coming as a student, tourist, or H-1B from Asia and then overstaying the visa.
H-1B visas typically last three years and can have an extension of an
additional three years. During that time period the visa holder must be
employed or the visa goes out of status. If the foreign worker stays until the
visa expires, or loses his job, he is required to voluntarily self deport.
Some decide not to stay here illegally instead of going back. Our government
has no way of knowing if the H-1B left the country because nobody tracks where
H-1Bs are once they enter the U.S. or whether they ever leave. In a legal
sense, these visa overstayers are just as illegal as the aliens who sneak
across our border.
Nobody knows how often H-1B visa holders overstay but there is an estimated
400,000 Indians here illegally, and there are plenty more that want to
come:
"America is a very attractive country; everybody who comes here
wants to stay," said Shah Peerally, a Silicon Valley immigration
lawyer. "I can tell you right now, there are nearly 1 billion
people in India, of which maybe 800 million want to come here."
Do you think the U.S. has enough people already? Our current population is
more than 300 million. Perhaps that immigration lawyer is exaggerating about
how many Indians want to come to the U.S., but if even if a fraction of 800
million want to come, and we add all the others from countries like China, we
had better prepare for a very different type of nation -- one that's crowded
beyond our wildest imaginations.
Just to put this into perspective, a big deal was made of a Pew Hispanic
Center survey that said that four in 10 Mexicans would immigrate to the United
States if given the chance. Mexico's population is about 100 million people so
even if 40% of the Mexican population came here it would amount to a paltry 40
million people. The entire population of Mexico could move here and it would
be a small fraction of the number from India that wants to come here!
Next time you hear a politician say that "comprehensive immigration reform"
is the only way to solve our problems, just keep in mind that all of those
plans have guest worker visa programs that are far bigger and more complicated
than H-1B -- and they will welcome the teeming masses of people from the
entire world! All of our Presidential candidates including McCain, Clinton,
and Obama think that the solution to our immigration woes is to hand out more
guest worker visas. So far our guest worker visa programs have only served to
make illegal immigration worse, so just why would anyone think making the
programs bigger will solve any of our problems?
This short LTE commentary by Gene A. Nelson, Ph.D will hopefully be published
in the Christian Science Monitor. I provide it as additional background. Brace
yourself for the Mercury News article that follows because it's a shocker.
<<<<< Commentary by Gene Nelson >>>>>
The visa overstayers (and their families) are "party crashers, IMO." While the
technical term is that they are "out of status," they are uninvited guests.
There are far too many of them. With up to 38 million illegal aliens - See:
http://tinyurl.com/239qul and up to 17 million as visa overstayers. From INS,
see: http://tinyurl.com/29cdnw and http://tinyurl.com/yqtqav
We are getting close to the "tipping point" when too many in the middle class
have their "backs against the wall" economically. The three prior waves of
immigration (all promoted by the economic elite only for their
benefit) ended with bloody riots and forced repatriation. [Mark] Krikorian's
approach of consistent "attrition through enforcement" is far more humane.
<<<<< End of Commentary >>>>>
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_8293975?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
Illegal emigres defy the image
FASTEST GROWING SOURCE? IT'S INDIA
By Mike Swift
Mercury News
Article Launched: 02/18/2008 01:30:47 AM PST
The Bay Area has a piece of the nation's fastest growing group of illegal
immigrants. But don't assume you know who they are.
Turning stereotypes on their head, a recent federal analysis of unauthorized
immigration says the most rapidly growing source of illegal immigration is
India - the same country whose engineers and programmers help power Google and
other Silicon Valley companies, whose doctors heal the Bay Area's sick, and
whose entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have become a force on both sides
of the international date line.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates that there are 270,000
unauthorized Indian natives in the United States - a 125 percent jump since
2000, the largest percentage increase of any nation with more than 100,000
illegal immigrants in the United States.
The number of undocumented Indians is dwarfed by the estimated 6.6 million
illegal residents from Mexico, according to the estimates from homeland
security's Office of Immigration Statistics. Yet, considering the high level
of education of many Indians, immigration experts say the federal report hints
at a new phenomenon: a high-skilled undocumented workforce to go along with
the nation's sizable numbers of low-skilled illegal workers.
If trends continue, within three years India would trail only Mexico, El
Salvador and Guatemala as a source of illegal immigration. Another national
immigration expert, Jeffrey S. Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center, estimates
that the number of illegal Indians is even higher, at 400,000 people.
Virtually all entered the United States legally but violated the terms of
their visas, say experts who study the nation's much maligned immigration
system.
"How do you get in? You come across the border, or you arrive here with a
visa," said Lindsay Lowell, policy director for the Institute for the Study of
International Migration at Georgetown University. "Indians aren't going to be
walking across the border like Mexicans."
Indians are among the most affluent ethnic groups in the United States, with a
median household income that is 62 percent higher than the figure for all U.S.
households.
Santa Clara County has the largest Indian-born population, and Alameda County
ranks fifth, among the nation's 3,141 counties, according to 2006 census data.
But there is no way to know what share of Bay Area Indian immigrants are
illegal.
The Census Bureau does not ask people about their immigration status, and the
Office of Immigration Statistics report did not provide state or local
estimates. Of the 2.5 million people of Indian ancestry living in the United
States, about 1 million are not U.S. citizens.
Federal officials calculated the number of illegal immigrants by using census
estimates of the total number of immigrants from individual countries,
compiling the total number of legal immigrants using federal immigration and
naturalization records, and then subtracting the number of legal residents
from the total immigrant population to determine the number of undocumented
people.
It is certainly a minority of the local Indian community, however, and
probably a very small one. Half the people of Indian ancestry living in Santa
Clara County are already U.S. citizens, either by birth or naturalization,
according to census data. Thousands of others are legal permanent residents,
or they are here legally on student, tourist or work visas.
Asked about the number of illegal Indians in Silicon Valley, Banjit Singh, an
Indian-born taxi driver waiting for a fare at Mineta San Jose International
Airport, said, "Here, there is a little bit. But you go to another city or
state, like L.A. or New York, there are many illegal people." Drivers need to
show proof of citizenship or legal immigration status to get a taxi
certificate.
But that doesn't mean the local number is insignificant. Local immigration
lawyers say that particularly among Indians, the ups and downs of Silicon
Valley's economy since 2001 are one reason why Indians have fallen out of
legal status.
"Most are bachelors; the way they get here is they have a job," Gabriel Jack,
a San Jose immigration lawyer, said of many of his Indian clients.
"They come here as professionals, most often in the H-1B program, and given
the fluctuations of Silicon Valley, the business climate, these guys lose
their jobs. They get laid off or they wager their hands on a start-up coming
in," Jack said. "The problem with the H-1B program is, you can't have any
significant time between jobs" without falling out of legal status.
Indians made up 44 percent of H-1B applicants in the 2005-06 fiscal year, five
times the number from second-place China, according to federal data.
Because an immigrant's status can be dependent on the status of a spouse, the
break-up of a marriage can also create an illegal immigrant.
Among Indians in the United States, "there has been a rapid increase in the
divorce rate. If they are on an H-1, maybe the wife is protected and maybe she
isn't," said Navneet Chugh, an immigration lawyer whose firm is based in
Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. "The guy is an engineer at HP or Cisco, and he
goes home on vacation, and his parents say, 'We have a girl for you.' And they
get married, and they come here and have all kinds of problems."
Another source is relatives from India who arrive for a visit on a tourist
visa and never go home.
"America is a very attractive country; everybody who comes here wants to
stay," said Shah Peerally, a Silicon Valley immigration lawyer. "I can tell
you right now, there are nearly 1 billion people in India, of which maybe 800
million want to come here."
The United States has deported slightly less than 500 Indians a year in recent
years. In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, "we have substantially
expanded our effort to find visa violators," said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman
for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The government, she said,
pursues cases based on public safety, rather than focusing on a specific
country of origin.
Silicon Valley companies such as Google say they need to recruit the world's
best talent to compete - and about one in 12 of Google's U.S.
employees, roughly 900 people, are H-1B visa holders. "We have not seen major
problems with prospective candidates being out of status," said Adam
Kovacevich, a Google spokesman.
But immigration lawyers like Jack say there is such a backlog of people
waiting for green cards - the wait is up to seven years for skilled workers
from India as of this month - that an immigrant can still be waiting in line
when even a six-year H-1B visa expires.
That can result in an illegal, highly educated, Indian immigrant, they said.
Unless Congress reforms the immigration system, "we are going to see this
high-skilled, illegal workforce emerging," said Frank D. Bean, director of the
Immigration Research Center at the University of California-Irvine.
"From a narrow economic point of view, it might work. From a social justice,
fairness point of view, it's a time bomb."
Contact Mike Swift at mswift@mercurynews.com or (408) 271-3648.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Newsletter Homepage:
http://www.JobDestruction.com/shameh1b/JobDestructionNews.htm
Support this Newsletter and www.JobDestruction.com by donating:
www.zazona.com/Donations.htm
To Be removed from this mailing list, reply to this email with UNSUbSCRIBE in
the subject window
Back to archives