Promoting Electrotechnology Careers and Public Policy

(NOTE: Letter sent to U.S. House of Representatives)

31 May 2000

Representative Neil Abercrombie
1502 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515-1101

Dear Representative Abercrombie:

Soon you will vote on whether to blow the lid off the NON-immigrant H-1B visa program for skilled foreign workers. Despite inside-the-Beltway lobbying to the contrary, this erodes the real interests of the IT industry. On behalf of the 230,000 U.S. members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Association of Engineering Societies (whose members represent a million engineers) and the Immigration Reform Coalition, I urge you to vote for green cards, not guest worker visas when you debate this legislation. Look at the facts:

• Virtually all H-1B visa holders want permanent residency - as many as 70% were using the H-1B as a stepping stone to green cards just a few years ago;

• Each year, 50,000 to 80,000 employment-based green cards go unused, while H-1B visas run out;
• More than 85% of the H-1B workers brought in by this legislation will NOT be able to obtain permanent residency before their "temporary" visas expire, which means that as many as one million will overstay their visas as third-class "permatemp aliens"; and finally
• Unless amended to fix the green card system, the pending H-1B bills will sever the connection between immigration and citizenship that depends on permanent residency.

Enclosed you will find materials to document these facts. The Open Letter to Congress is signed by the dot.com elite: Linus Torvalds, inventor of the Linux operating system; Steve Wozniak, educator and co-founder of Apple Computer; Esther Dyson, President of Edventure Holdings; and dozens of the IT industry's leading entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of International Migration recently assessed the H-1B program, and its conclusions are devastating. Like it or not, the votes you will soon cast on this obscure temporary admissions category will determine whether the United States remains a land of immigrants in the 21st century, or becomes a land of guest workers and permatemps.

Please examine the enclosed materials, including IEEE-USA's proposals for reform, and vote for green cards, not guest worker visas.

Sincerely,

Merrill W. Buckley, Jr.
2000 IEEE-USA President

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

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Last Update 13 June 2000
Staff Contact:  Vin O'Neill, v.oneill@ieee.org