Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:53:24 -0800 From: Norm Matloff To: Norm Matloff Subject: Specter bill would be a sea change on H-1B and green cards To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter Near the end of last year, Sen. Arlen Specter and Sen. Ted Kennedy tried to pass legislation expanding the H-1B program. Due in part to an outcry by techies and immigration reform groups, that effort failed. However, as Rob Sanchez and I pointed out at the time in our e-newsletters, the H-1B expansionists would soon be back with another bill. Sure enough, they now have introduced a VERY far-reaching bill. I suppose that many techie activists, flush with their success last year, will dismiss Specter's latest effort. But he has much more patience than they do. In addition, the immigration reform groups have always given illegal immigration issues higher priority. The press has been flooded with misleading plants about the alleged failure of U.S. education in math and science, and the lobbyists know that Pushing the Education Button always works in H-1B lobbying. So I'm sure Specter believes he will succeed, if not this time then sometime this year. Here are some specific comments: * The measures include nearly doubling the number of H-1B skilled-worker * temporary visas to 115,000 -- with an option of raising the cap 20 * percent more each year. This basically gives the industry and the immigration attorney lobbyists a blank check. * Congress had increased the visas during the late 1990s dot-com boom, * when Silicon Valley complained of tech-worker shortages, although * native-born engineers complained that their wages were undermined by * cheap labor from India and China. This is a very unfortunate statement by the author here, in two ways. First, the victims here are ALL American engineers, not just natives. Naturalized citizens and permanent residents (i.e. green card holders) are harmed just as much as the natives. Second, the issue is less about undermining of wages than about being locked out of jobs and driven out of the field. The "undermining of wages" argument is made by IEEE-USA (who the author may well have spoken with). IEEE-USA, under constant pressure by the IEEE parent organization to tone down its stance on the H-1B issue, has chosen the argument, "Our wages aren't growing fast enough," which is bland and doesn't draw much sympathy, instead of the harder-hitting and more accurate, "We've got engineers working as security guards because they been forced out of the field by the use of foreign labor." * "We're in a bad crunch right now," said Laura Reiff, head of the Essential * Worker Immigration Coalition, a business umbrella group backing more * immigration. "We are totally jammed on immigrant visas, the green card * category, and totally jammed on H-1B visas. You can't bring in tech * workers right now." Reiff is an immigration lawyer. The American Immigration Lawyers Association has a huge vested interest in H-1B. H-1B forms the largest part of most immigration lawyers' business. And of course the vested interests of the business members of that umbrella group are obvious, access to cheap labor. * Alarm in Washington has shifted from student hijackers to U.S. * competitiveness. Indian and Chinese students face brighter prospects in * their own booming economies, and the fear now is that they no longer want * to come to the United States. I'm sorry to see that the author does not challenge the claim that we need these foreign students to maintain our competitiveness. The fact is that because of H-1B and offshoring (which are connected), the best and the brightest American students are choosing to avoid studying engineering. What is THAT doing to our competitiveness? * The new skilled immigration measures are part of a controversial 300-page * bill by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., now * being rewritten by the committee with the goal of reaching the Senate * floor by the end of the month. If any reader knows the number of the bill, please let me know. The NumbersUSA Web page says that the bill does not have a number yet, but that page may be out of date. * Other provisions include a new F-4 visa category for students pursuing * advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. * These students would be granted permanent residence if they find a job * in their field and pay a $1,000 fee toward scholarships and training * of U.S. workers. "Other provisions" is putting it mildly. From my point of view, this is the central feature of the bill. Let's look at it more closely. First of all, the premise here (sadly, not questioned by the reporter) is that we need to have those foreign MS/PhD students. Actually, we are overproducing MS/PhDs as it is. We've got tons of MS/PhD holders who have been forced out of the field. For instance, I've mentioned before my former student (domestic), who has an MS, holds several patents and had his work written up in the Wall Street Journal, is articulate and well-liked by his peers, but who now in his late 30s cannot find an engineering job. Again it boils down to an issue of cheap labor. As I've discussed before, part of the H-1B issue relates to age. Younger workers are cheaper, whether domestic or foreign. When employers run out of younger Americans to hire, they turn to younger H-1Bs rather than older (e.g. late 30s) Americans. For example, I've enclosed another recent San Francisco Chronicle article below, consisting of an interview with Intel's Director of Global Staffing. That job title speaks volumes, doesn't it? Well, so does another remark the director makes: * (We're looking for) Ph.D candidates with semiconductor experience. The key word here is "candidates." This is an academic term, meaning someone is close to finishing his/her PhD. In other words, Intel doesn't want PhDs or Master's degree holders in general, such as my former student in his late 30s described above. They want the YOUNG ones, as they are cheaper. Speaking of Intel, it is often claimed by industry lobbyists (including Intel) that the only employers who use H-1Bs as cheap labor are the Indian-owned firms such as TCS. This is absolutely false (and quite possibly an appeal to racist sentiments, by the way). Intel saves big time by hiring H-1Bs; see my analysis of Intel H-1B salaries at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/IntelH1BWages.txt Note carefully that Intel does this entirely within the laws and regulations. The vast majority of employers who underpay H-1Bs in full compliance with the law. This is due to the huge loopholes in the program. Intel and the other big firms exploit these loopholes just like they exploit loopholes in the tax code. I must say that the lack of awareness in Congress on the cheap labor nature of the H-1B program is outrageous. There is a mountain of data on this, documented in my university law journal article, available at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/MichJLawReform.pdf And even more importantly, in two studies commissioned by Congress itself, interviews of employers showed that some actually admitted paying the H-1Bs less than Americans. For instance, the 2003 report by Congress' research arm, the GAO, stated Some employers said that they hired H-1B workers in part because these workers would often accept lower salaries than similarly qualified U.S. workers; however, these employers said they never paid H-1B workers less than the required wage. The NRC report found similar results. Yet I am quite sure that one can visit every single office on Capitol Hill and not find a single staffer who is aware that Congress' own commissioned studies found employers actually admitting to paying H-1Bs less. Note too that the GAO phrasing above should have shown Congress that the prevailing wage provision in H-1B law is a joke, illustrating the point that the law is full of loopholes. The industry lobbyists make a big point of saying that a large portion of PhD (and to some degree MS) students in U.S. universities re foreign students, with the implication that there is "something wrong" with the American students. The fact is that in the long run it just doesn't pay for an American student to get a PhD or even a Master's. The National Science Foundation (our government agency) actually planned it this way, advocating bringing in foreign students to hold down PhD salaries, and openly admitted that the resulting depressing in wages would deter Americans from pursuing graduate work in the field. Academia loves this too, because it means they can pay low stipends to their graduate research assistants. See http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/ForeignGradStudents.txt Now, still on the issue of this bill's provision to grant green cards to foreign students with graduate degrees, there are a couple of big points here. First, let's see what the up side of this would be: The biggest reason employers can get away with paying their H-1Bs less than Americans is that if an H-1B is being sponsored for a green card by the employer, she becomes a de facto indentured servant, i.e. is immobile for the several years it takes to get the green card. She dare not move to another employer, because it would necessitate starting the multi-year green card process all over again. (Except in the very last stage of the process, due to a provision enacted in 2000.) This puts the H-1B at the employer's mercy, with lower salaries, raises and bonuses. In addition, the employers love the "loyalty" of the H-1Bs stemming from this de facto indentured servitude. One immigration attorney described it well (Dayton Daily News, July 11, 1999): * [Attorney Sherry] Neal said foreign nationals may appear to be more * loyal workers because they aren't as mobile as other in-demand tech * workers. The Immigration and Naturalization Service must give approval * before foreign nationals change jobs---a process that can take six * weeks. "Some of the U.S. workers, they get a job offer and they are * gone in a week," she said. Similarly, Workforce Magazine, a publication for HR executives, pointed out that from the employer point of view (John Wentworth, Stop-gap Measures for the IT Staffing Crunch, Workforce Magazine, May 1999): * ...There are two good things about H-1Bs. First, they allow you to * travel the globe while you identify technical professionals who want to * work in the United States. Second, the H-1B is valid only for the * employer who arranges it. If you bring a technical professional into the * country and he or she decides to jump ship, its likely that the ship he * or she will have to jump on is the one thats going back to the home * country. If the person wants to come back, he or she has to start the * immigration process all over again. As a result, most H-1B visa holders * demonstrate remarkable loyalty. The 2000 legislation made it easier to switch the visa to a new employer, but as I said, the green card process is the real driver here. Many employers value this "loyalty" even more than the cheap labor aspect. It's true for the foreign graduate students as well. As one engineering dean put it, "The foreign students "will do everything they can to stay here" (Computerworld, Feb. 28, 2005). Obviously the pattern continues after they graduate and become H-1Bs. What I am leading up to, then, is that "the devil is in the details." How exactly would this provision of Specter's bill work? If the foreign student really can petition for a green card on his own, without employer sponsorship, that would remove a lot of the exploitability of the H-1Bs. That would be great if it were the case, but the article here says the student must get a job in the field. This implies some role for the employer in the green card process, and you can bet that the industry lobbyists will vigorously push Congress to make that role just as strong as it is now. If the bill passes, they'll then push BCIS (formerly INS) to write the regulations this way too. The result will be that the the H-1Bs with U.S. graduate degrees will be exploited just as much as before. Moreover, this provision would create its own demand. Students around the world would think, "Wow, all I have to do is get a Master's degree and I can get a green card." It's easy for almost any student to find SOME U.S. school to accept them, and later to find SOME U.S. employer to hire them (often where the employer is himself a former H-1B from the same country and thus knows exactly how to exploit the worker). In other words, although this green card provision could conceivably have some beneficial effect, it almost certainly will be implemented in a form that does not have that effect, and in any case there will be a net negative impact on workers who are U.S. citizens and permanent residents. The article goes on to say, * The provisions for highly skilled workers enjoy support in both * parties in the Senate and in the Bush administration after a raft of * high-profile studies have warned that the United States is not * producing enough math and science students and is in danger of losing * its global edge in innovation to India and China. That "raft of high-profile studies" comes from groups with the most intense vested interests in having a liberal H-1B program--industry, immigration lawyers, academia. Austin Fragomen, one of the most prominent immigration attorneys in the U.S. and a major players in lobbying efforts to get Congress to enact liberal H-1B legislation, told Workforce Magazine in March 1996 (emphasis added): "The business community mobilized, forming American Business for Legal Immigration (ABLI), a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group that represents a number of associations and employers, and COMMISSIONS ACADEMIC STUDIES TO SUPPORT ITS POSITION." It's especially sad that the press--which dutifully reports on all these "studies" when contacted by lobbyists--is unaware of the fact that academia in particular writes these studies toward a highly self-serving goal. Academia depends hugely on industry for donations for research, equipment and even buildings (it's no accident that Stanford's Computer Science Dept. is housed in Bill Gates Hall). Furthermore, they need the cheap research labor provided by the foreign graduate students to maintain their research empires. This is a big deal, as it is key to getting federal research funds (San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 27, 2002). So while the press raises an eyebrow when it sees a "study" by the tobacco industry, it naively accepts academic studies at face value, without questioning their motivation. As to the "studies" themselves, given their motivation it is not surprising that they tend to be highly misleading. For instance, many of them claim a seemingly poor showing of American kids at the grade-school level on international math and science tests. Yet it has been repeatedly pointed out by education experts that differences in test scores are primarily due to America's struggle to deal with a social underclass. Consider the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study eighth-grade science test, for instance, and the scores achieved by Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Had these states--none of which has a substantial underclass--been treated as separate nations, each of them would have been outscored only by Singapore. (By the way, China and India, main sources of the engineering foreign students, refuse to participate in TIMMS.) See David Berliner, "Our Schools Versus Theirs," Washington Post, January 28, 2001. Now consider this passage of the article: * Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr suggested at a technology * summit last fall that the United States "should staple a green card to * every kid, every foreign national that graduates with a degree in * engineering and science, so that they stay here. Imagine innovation in * America without Andy Grove, without Jerry Yang, without Sergey Brin -- * Hungarian, Chinese, Russian. These immigrants have contributed enormously * to innovation and our well-being." First of all, none of those three people were H-1Bs. Grove was a refugee and Yang and Bring were family immigrants. But much more importantly, none of those three people or their firms has been key to technological innovation in the industry. Intel (Grove) became big due to a historical accident and has never been especially innovative, and the search engines of Yahoo and Google aren't better than the others; Yahoo did not even develop its own search engine. I have always actively supported bringing in "the best and the brightest" from around the world, but none of the above three would fit into this category. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/10/MNGV9HLVAE1.DTL Friday, March 10, 2006 (SF Chronicle) Immigration bill would add visas for tech workers Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau Buried in the Senate's giant immigration bill -- hardly noticed amid a fierce debate over a guest-worker program for unskilled laborers -- are provisions that would open the country's doors to highly skilled immigrants for science, math, technology and engineering jobs. The provisions were sought by Silicon Valley tech companies and enjoy significant bipartisan support amid concern that the United States might lose its lead in technology. They would broaden avenues to legal immigration for foreign tech workers and would put those with advanced degrees on an automatic path to permanent residence should they want it. The measures include nearly doubling the number of H-1B skilled-worker temporary visas to 115,000 -- with an option of raising the cap 20 percent more each year. H-1B visas were highly controversial in the Bay Area when their numbers reached a peak of 195,000 in 2003. Congress had increased the visas during the late 1990s dot-com boom, when Silicon Valley complained of tech-worker shortages, although native-born engineers complained that their wages were undermined by cheap labor from India and China. With the tech crash and the revelation that some of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had entered the country on student visas, the political climate for foreign workers darkened, and Congress quietly allowed the number of H-1B visas to plummet back to 65,000 a year. The cap was reached in August -- in effect turning off the tap of the visas for 14 months. A special exemption of 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees was reached in January. "We're in a bad crunch right now," said Laura Reiff, head of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a business umbrella group backing more immigration. "We are totally jammed on immigrant visas, the green card category, and totally jammed on H-1B visas. You can't bring in tech workers right now." Alarm in Washington has shifted from student hijackers to U.S. competitiveness. Indian and Chinese students face brighter prospects in their own booming economies, and the fear now is that they no longer want to come to the United States. The new skilled immigration measures are part of a controversial 300-page bill by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., now being rewritten by the committee with the goal of reaching the Senate floor by the end of the month. Other provisions include a new F-4 visa category for students pursuing advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. These students would be granted permanent residence if they find a job in their field and pay a $1,000 fee toward scholarships and training of U.S. workers. Labor certification rules also would be streamlined for foreigners holding the desired advanced degrees from a U.S. university. Immigrants with advanced degrees in the desired fields, as well as those of "extraordinary ability" and "outstanding professors and researchers," would also get an exemption from the cap on employment-based green cards and slots for permanent residence. "The U.S. is educating these people," said Kara Calvert, director of government relations for the Information Technology Industry Council, a tech industry group. "This allows these students to remain in the U.S. and contribute to the U.S. economy." The provisions for highly skilled workers enjoy support in both parties in the Senate and in the Bush administration after a raft of high-profile studies have warned that the United States is not producing enough math and science students and is in danger of losing its global edge in innovation to India and China. Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy echoed many in the tech industry at a conference in Washington on Wednesday when he warned that if skilled immigration is not expanded, "There will be a great sucking sound of innovation out of the U.S." Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr suggested at a technology summit last fall that the United States "should staple a green card to every kid, every foreign national that graduates with a degree in engineering and science, so that they stay here. Imagine innovation in America without Andy Grove, without Jerry Yang, without Sergey Brin -- Hungarian, Chinese, Russian. These immigrants have contributed enormously to innovation and our well-being." But House Republicans are cool toward any increase in legal immigration, including skilled workers, and are at sharp odds with the White House. They passed a bill in December to crack down on border enforcement, calling for construction of a 700-mile fence on the border with Mexico. House Republicans omitted skilled immigration from their "Innovation and Competitiveness Act," released with much pomp last week, prompting House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, to blast the proposal as doing nothing "to ensure that the best and brightest from around the world are able to contribute to innovation in the United States." Nor has Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, shown much enthusiasm for more skilled workers, preferring her own plan for a guest-worker program limited to agriculture. Feinstein questioned the tech proposals in an interview last week. Her stance has angered California's high-tech business community. Industry officials said CEOs from California and across the country have pleaded with Feinstein to no avail. They complain that she is ignoring the technology industry, which they contend is vital to the state's economy, but is willing to provide amnesty to 900,000 Mexican farmworkers, most of whom work in California. Opponents of broadening immigration for skilled workers said doing so would defeat efforts to get more Americans interested in science, math, engineering and other technological fields. "It sends the message to students in those fields now, why bother if you're going to have a hard time getting a job in the U.S. because we're importing workers in those fields who are working for less than it would take to hire an American worker," said Caroline Espinosa, spokeswoman for NumbersUSA, a group opposed to expanding immigration. NumbersUSA estimated, using Department of Education figures, that 250,000 nonresident aliens are studying math, science, engineering and related fields in the United States. E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead@sfchronicle.com. Face to Face: Interviews with Hiring Professionals at Places You Want to Work Intel Corporation Sunday, February 19, 2006 Dorenda Kettman - Director of Global Staffing For decades, Intel Corporation has developed technology enabling the computer and Internet revolution. Founded in 1968 to build semiconductor memory products, Intel introduced the world's first microprocessor in 1971. Today, the company is the world's largest chip maker and is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Dorenda Kettman, Intel's director of global staffing, has been with the company for 33 years. What brought you to the company? Well, trying to remember 33 years ago, it was the opportunity to work for a new company that sounded fun and exciting. I guess I was right! What keeps you here? It is a combination of things. The great people and managers that I work with at Intel, and the opportunities for growth, challenge and development are huge. It's a great environment - very open and honest, with a willingness to address problems. There's lots of change, if you like that. It's egalitarian, with a good focus on results - very disciplined and ethical. What's unique about your culture? It's strong and lasting. We're a technology company rooted in innovation and operational excellence. Our culture really is described by our values of risk taking, quality, being a great place to work, discipline, results orientation and customer orientation. Our values speak to who we are and how we conduct business. We strive to put our values into action by focusing on innovation, challenging the status quo and embracing change, open and honest communication, becoming experts at reasoned risk-taking, continuously improving and excelling in all of Intel's business areas. We're always striving to be the best we can be, committing to ever-increasing challenges. We also take great pride in delivering on commitments. These qualities are at the foundation of our culture and what ultimately makes us unique. What other companies do you compete against for employees? We compete against all types of companies across many industries and around the world. We obviously compete with other companies in the semiconductor industry, but we're also looking for people with great ideas, initiative and the drive to be the best they can be. This transcends all industries. What are the hot growth areas for the firm? Intel's latest strategic initiative, Platform Transformation, requires thinking beyond processors and becoming more focused on the customer experience. The world has changed. Digital technology is transforming every aspect of society, from enterprise to entertainment, from healthcare to education. This calls for a fundamental shift in technology development, from a focus on delivering devices, gadgets and components to a more comprehensive focus on understanding how people actually use - or would potentially use - technology in their daily lives, and then delivering integrated solutions to address those usages. This also requires some different skill sets for which we haven't recruited before. What are the key job opportunities for students at Intel? Both students and recent college graduates can take advantage of a wide range of opportunities at Intel available around the world. Intel offers traditional internships, which provide an excellent way to see Intel from the inside and experience the excitement of working in a global technology-driven environment. Intel also offers two different rotational programs that allow recent graduates to start their careers by trying out different leadership roles within engineering or marketing. Intel also has international opportunities for students who prefer to work in their home countries, such as China, India and Malaysia. What are the key opportunities for experienced hires? We have job opportunities in a wide range of areas, including engineering, finance, sales, marketing, IT, manufacturing, facilities and site services, materials, planning and purchasing, legal and government affairs, human resources and supply chain management. We encourage everyone to go to www.Intel.com/jobs, where they can find more information regarding careers and job opportunities at Intel. Using this process enables Intel recruiters to quickly and efficiently match a candidate's skills and experience with open positions. Do you have any specific programs in place to help retain employees? I think we retain most of our workforce because of the great opportunities for growth and development, the ability to globally move around the company, great managers and an open environment. More formally, we regularly survey our employees to see what's important to them at Intel. We offer job rotations, work life effectiveness programs, reward and recognition programs and management development/leadership programs, to name a few. Where do you find job candidates? Our search for job candidates is worldwide. We use a variety of means to get that done. The majority of our candidates come through www.Intel.com and employee referrals. In addition, we routinely post our jobs to a number of job boards, we search a variety of resume databases and we attend job fairs and technical conferences: How does the interview process work? At Intel, the most common interviews are structured one-on-ones that focus on both technical and behavioral skills. The technical assessment focuses on an individual's education and job experience related to a given job. The behavioral assessment is based on the premise that past performance predicts future behavior. The behavioral questions focus on those real life/critical incidences that allow the interviewer to get detailed information of an individual's role, challenges in that role and accomplishments to achieve a given result. What's the biggest mistake a candidate can make during an interview? Inadequate preparation - lack of knowledge of Intel and lack of good preparation for the technical and behavioral assessment. Are there any challenges about working at Intel? I like to think of (challenges) as opportunities to grow and strengthen my skills. The ever-changing environment, which is a function of the industry, is always challenging and fun. The open environment encourages people to speak up, assume responsibility and not be afraid to openly address problems. What are the most mission critical jobs that you're trying to fill right now? (We're looking for) Ph.D candidates with semiconductor experience. There are always hard-to-find skills that we're trying to locate globally. Some examples are hardware/software engineers, product development engineers, integrated circuit manufacturing engineers, research scientists, sales and marketing professionals and technology modeling engineers. Is there anything else job seekers should know? At Intel, we believe opportunity is power. We are committed to an inclusive environment that provides each employee with the opportunity to fully participate in our business and contribute to its success. We need talented individuals in engineering, finance, human resources, sales and marketing, supply network and many other areas. Visit www.intel.com/jobs - all of our external jobs are posted there. Our recruiters routinely search this database to quickly and efficiently match a candidate's skills and experience with our open positions. This is an exciting time to be a part of Intel, given our move to into new markets. The success of this new platform strategy depends on talented employees who are passionate about technology and making a difference. This article is part of ChronicleJobs, a weekly advertising feature produced by the Marketing Department of the San Francisco Chronicle, and does not involve the editorial staff. [imp.gif?client=ca-sfgate_js&event=noscript] Buy The San Francisco Chronicle Get up to 50% off home delivery of the Chronicle for 12 weeks! [clear.gif] [clear.gif] Bay Recruiter Top Jobs LOAN AGENT Part time / Full time. 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