Promoting Electrotechnology Careers and Public Policy

IEEE-USA ACTION ALERT:
CONTACT YOUR SENATORS TO OPPOSE S.2045

Contact: Vin O'Neill, Senior Legislative Representative, Career Activities
v.oneill@ieee.org, + 1 202 785 0017

Feb. 28:  IEEE-USA needs your help NOW to oppose a Senate bill that would greatly expand the visa limits on high-tech guestworkers.

On March 2, the Senate Judiciary Committee will meet at 10:00 a.m. to mark-up "The American Competitiveness for the 21st Century Act of 2000" (S.2045), legislation introduced by Senators Orrin Hatch and Spencer Abraham which would significantly increase the H-1B non-immigrant (temporary) admissions ceilings for skilled foreign workers. The H-1B visa program currently authorizes the annual admission of 115,000 foreign nationals in specialty occupations (most of them in high tech and health professions) to work in the United States for periods of up to six years.

The key provisions of the Hatch/Abraham bill include:

• Increases in H-1B Visa Ceilings - Authorizes the following increases in H-1B specialty occupation admissions ceilings: 80,000 in FY 2000 (from 115,000 to 195,000); 87,500 in FY 2001 (from 107,500 to 195,000); and 130,000 in FY 2002 (from 65,000 to 195,000).
• Special Exemptions - Exempts non-immigrants employed by U.S. educational institutions, research facilities and recent graduates (with master's or Ph.D. degrees) of U.S. colleges and universities from the numerical ceilings.
• Per Country Limits - Modifies current law to eliminate the per country limits on Permanent (Employment-based) Immigrant Admissions.
• Fraudulently Issued Visas - Requires that fraudulently issued visas be revoked and that their number be subtracted from the visas issued total that counts against the applicable ceiling in any given year.
• Increased Portability of H-1B Visas - Allows H-1B workers to change employers when a new employer files a labor condition application on their behalf instead of having to wait until the application is approved as required under current law.
• Extensions of Authorized Stays - Allows non-immigrants whose visas expire before they can obtain another temporary visa or adjust to permanent resident status, either because of the per country limit or because of INS processing delays, to apply for an extension of their temporary visa status.
• Attestation and Fee Requirements - Extends the domestic recruitment attestation requirement (for H-1B dependent employers) and the $500 per application fee for one additional year (through the end of FY 2002).
• Digital Divide Study - Directs the National Science Foundation to conduct an 18 month study of the divergence in access to high technology in the United States.

IEEE-USA estimates that this bill will allow entry of as many as 300,000 guest workers a year in the 2000-2002 period, at the same time that permanent immigrant visas (i.e. "green cards") are declining in use.

IEEE-USA's POSITION

IEEE-USA opposes further increases in the H-1B visa cap. Instead we support education and training investments in U.S. high tech workers and reforms to the permanent immigration system that would allow industry to recruit needed high-tech workers using the currently underutilized permanent immigration visa categories (i.e. "Green Cards, Not Guest Workers"). Our recommendations are outlined in our position statement on "Ensuring a Strong High-Tech Workforce for the 21st Century" (http://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/positions/21cworkforce.html) and are reflected in the following talking points:

• Current law, and S.2045, does not protect the interests of the great majority of U.S. engineers and other high-tech workers, who can be laid off and replaced by H-1B workers or denied employment opportunities by companies who prefer to hire guest workers. Only a very small group of "H-1B dependent" companies are required to abide by very basic attestation safeguards for U.S. workers and the available enforcement powers are very limited.
• Congress should support "Green Cards, not Guest Workers." It was immigrants, not guest workers who helped make America great. Permanent immigrants can freely change jobs and compete for top salaries and promotions, which puts them on a level playing field with other U.S. engineers in a free marketplace. Guest workers are closely bound to their employer/sponsor, which makes them susceptible to exploitation. Incidence of fraud and abuse of the H-1B program is rampant.
• It has only been a year since Congress nearly doubled the annual ceiling on H-1B visas from 65,000 to 115,000 in 1999 and 2000. It is premature for Congress to consider another increase until it has time to review the results of the studies of high tech labor markets conditions that were mandated in last year's H-1B visa legislation - studies that won't be completed until this Fall.
• The American Association of Engineering Societies, a federation of engineering societies representing over one million U.S. engineers is calling on Congress to defer consideration of any increase until the National Research Council completes its congressionally- mandated study on the high tech workforce (see http://www.aaes.org/publicpolicy/statements/h1bvisas.htm).
• Employers' claims of a massive IT worker shortage are largely anecdotal and unsupported by credible analysis. Impartial experts, including the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Sloan Foundation, the Computing Research Association, Congress' General Accounting Office, economists and others have concluded that the empirical evidence currently available is insufficient to support assertions that there are information technology worker shortages of crisis proportions as claimed.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP

Contact your Senators by phone, fax or email and urge them to not to support S.2045. Tell them that S.2045 will hurt the engineering profession. Urge them to consider "Green Cards, Not Guest Workers." Use the talking points above.

We ask you to act before March 2 if your Senator is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee: Sens. Orrin Hatch (Utah), Strom Thurmond (NC), Charles Grassley (IA), Arlen Specter (PA), Jon Kyl (AZ), Mike DeWine (OH), John Ashcroft (MO), Spencer Abraham (MI), Jeff Sessions (AL) Robert Smith (NH), Patrick Leahy (VT), Edward Kennedy (MA), Joseph Biden (DE), Herbert Kohl (WI), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Russ Feingold (WI), Robert Torricelli (NJ), and Charles Schumer (NY).

To see if your Senator is currently a co-sponsor of this legislation, consult: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:SN02045:@@@P .

To send an email message to your Senators, go to IEEE-USA's Legislative Action Center (http://congress.nw.dc.us/ieeeusa) and select our Guestworker Action Alert:

( http://congress.nw.dc.us/cgi-bin/alertpr_oracle.pl?dir=ieee&alert=125 ).

You can phone your Senators'offices by contacting the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and asking for them by name. When you reach the office receptionist, identify yourself, note that you are a constituent, and ask to speak to the Senator or the staffer responsible for immigration issues. Or ask for a fax number where you can fax a letter. If you need assistance with contact information, contact the IEEE-USA Washington office at + 1 202 785 0017.

Forward this alert to any friends and colleagues who you feel would share your concerns about this legislation.  A sample letter is attached for your use as a model that you can personalize to emphasize your own views and experiences. Please send a copy of your letters (and any responses you receive) to IEEE-USA, Attn: Chris Brantley, 1828 L Street, N.W., Suite 1202, Washington, DC 20036-5104.

MODEL LETTER TO THE U.S. SENATE OPPOSING
ANOTHER INCREASE IN THE H-1B ADMISSIONS CEILINGS

(TODAY'S DATE)

The Honorable (FULL NAME)
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator (LAST NAME):

I'm writing to urge you to oppose enactment of legislation that would allow recruitment of hundreds of thousands of foreign temporary guest workers on H-1B visas rather than building a strong high tech workforce for America through investments in U.S. workers and improvements in permanent immigration.

I urge you to take a closer look at the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act (S.2045) - and at the H-1B program - before you agree to support more workforce welfare for the high tech industry.

In 1998, Congress effectively doubled the H-1B admissions ceiling, from 65,000 to 115, 000 visas per year. That provides for cumulative admissions of nearly 700,000 temporary foreign workers over the six-year duration of these visas. This time they want to raise the cap to 195,000 a year for three more years in order to expedite the admission of an additional quarter of a million workers.

But the actual increase will be even greater than that. The proposed bill will also exempt American colleges and universities, research facilities and substantial numbers of foreign students with advanced degrees from U.S. educational institutions. The total numbers admitted under this proposal could number close to 300,000 a year.

As an engineer and as a constituent, I believe that America's interests will be better served by permanent admissions reforms that are pro-immigrant, pro-family and free market oriented rather than by increasing our reliance on a temporary guest worker program that allows employers to lay-off or ignore otherwise qualified U.S. citizens in favor of guest workers, and at the same time exploit foreign nationals who are eager to enter or remain in the United States, but who will find it increasingly difficult to permanently immigrate because of the INS visa backlog.

Sincerely,

(YOUR NAME)
(ADDRESS)
(CITY, STATE, ZIP)

(bcc: IEEE-USA, Attn: CJB, 1828 L Street, N.W., Suite 1202, Washington, DC 20036-5104)

(The preceding Action Alert was distributed by electronic mail
to approximately 700 IEEE-USA volunteers.)

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - United States of America
1828 L Street, N.W., Suite 1202, Washington, DC 20036-5104
Office: (202) 785-0017 * Fax: (202) 785-0835 * E-mail: ieeeusa@ieee.org

| Top of Page | Policy Log | Public Policy Forum | IEEE-USA |

Last Update: 1 March 2000
Staff Contact:  Vin O'Neill, v.oneill@ieee.org