LTE Submission to the Christian Science Monitor

Date: Monday, June 03, 2002 11:06 AM

*** H-1B NEWSLETTER ***

Get the Facts on H-1B at
www.ZaZona.com

Harris Miller has gone overboard this time so I wrote the letter to the
editor below. Besides the falsehoods about security that I discuss in
the
letter here are a couple more blatant mistatements in the article.

* Harris Miller said that the number of H-1B visas granted in 2001 was a
decrease from the year 2000. The year 2001 has a record number of H-1B
visas
issued - 163,000, and that's not including an unknown number that were
exempted from the total.

* The author said that an employer has to demonstrate that no American
worker could be found in order to obtain an
H-1B visa for a foreign worker. There is no such requirement.

One thing that was very accurate in the article is that Harris Miller is
trying to change the H-1B limit. In 2004 the limit drops back to 65,000
and
that is not an acceptable situation in his view.

Christian Science Monitor
Letters to the Editor

I don't share Harris Miller's relief that 48 Muslim terrorists didn't
use
H-1B visas to enter the U.S. He failed to mention that schools that
trained
these terrorist pilots use foreign instructors on H-1B visas. Most of
these
pilot schools will train anybody that comes here on a student visa, and
the
school can employ these graduates as trainers by applying for an H-1B
visa.
After the H-1B flight trainers have been in the US long enough they can
get
Green Cards and then fly for any airline in the US. I'm not relieved to
know
that these pilots may even be allowed to carry guns in the cabin.

I developed an online database at www.ZaZona.com/LCA-Data to view the
applications that companies file to get H-1B visas. See for yourself the
applications that were filed for some of the flight schools that trained
the
WTC pilots such as Cockpit Resource Management, Embry-Riddle University,
and
Flight Safety International. It's also interesting to see the thousands
of
companies that would rather hire H-1Bs than American workers.

H-1B is a huge security risk and nobody, including Harris Miller, should
ignore the dangers of allowing foreigners to work in our sensitive
government offices and our high-tech companies. H-1Bs are usually not
given
a security check of any kind so we don't know much about who is using
these
visas. H-1B visas could easily be used for terrorists or for industrial
espionage. Just recently a pair of Chinese H-1Bs were charged with
industrial espionage against Lucent. It's very frightening that the INS
has
announced that they won't track H-1Bs and won't deport them when they
lose
their visas due to job loss. They are given a free pass to roam, or fly,
anywhere in this country.

Rob Sanchez

P.S. - If anyone at the Christian Science Monitor wants to verify my
facts
but is confused how to use my online database I will step it through it
with
them on the phone. I obtained that database directly from the Dept. of
Labor
by using the Freedom of Information Act.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0603/p21s02-wmwo.html

Despite soft economy, a call for foreign tech workers
By David R. Francis | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Since 1993, 48 foreign-born radical Muslims have been charged,
convicted, or
named as being involved in terrorism in the United States. None of them
entered the country using an H1-B visa.

That's a relief to Harris Miller, president of the Information
Technology
Association of America. This lobbying group successfully fought in
Congress
three years ago to expand the number of foreign programmers and other
skilled workers that high-technology companies could hire under the H1-B
program.

At that time, the high-tech industry was booming. Mr. Miller held that
there
was a severe shortage of Americans to do the well-paid, computer-related
work. So Indians, Taiwanese, South Koreans, Chinese, and other
foreigners
were essential to fill these posts.

Since then, the information technology industry (IT), especially its
dotcom
side, has suffered a sharp downturn. Last year, IT firms laid off 2.6
million workers and hired 2.1 million. The size of the IT workforce
shrank
from 10.4 million to 9.9 million.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of IT workers are jobless or work in
other fields. Yet from Oct. 1, 2001, to March 30, 2002, employers
applied to
the Immigration and Naturalization Service to bring in 105,800 more
foreign
workers.

To Norman Matloff, a computer-science professor at the University of
California, Davis, this hiring of foreigners is mostly unnecessary with
so
many Americans, including graduates in computer science, available.

To Mr. Matloff, it reflects the desire of high-tech companies to get
cheaper
and more malleable foreign workers. "The recession has given them more
incentive to save money," he charges.

Matloff is wrong, Miller says. "The employer community is being very
responsible. They did not abuse the program. This is not just a
cheap-labor
program."

This is an old issue these two protagonists debated a few years ago. It
will
get more attention next year when the H1-B legislation will come up
again in
Congress.

Otherwise, the national ceiling for H1-B visas will revert from the
present
195,000 annual level to 65,000 in 2004.

Miller indicates he will seek continuation of the program at the 195,000
level. The IT industry, he says, has turned a corner and the demand for
workers is bouncing back.

With the downturn in the industry, some laid-off H1-B employees have
gone
home. Others have sought sponsorship and work from another employer, as
they
are allowed to do. Some have found an American spouse, which makes it
easier
to get a green card for permanent residency. Others have been sponsored
by
their employers for a green card.

Paul Donnelly, a Hyattsville, Md., consultant on immigration, suspects
at
least 500,000 H1-B visa holders live in the US, many unemployed or
underemployed.

The INS has indicated that it is not trying to track H1-B workers to see
if
they still have a job, or to send home those who are jobless.

Relevant to that decision, a study by the Center for Immigration Studies
in
Washington last month found that the 48 foreign radicals involved in
terrorism since 1993 got into the US as students, tourists, or business
travelers; sneaked across the border; stowed away on ships; used false
passports; were illegal immigrants that were granted amnesty, applied
for
political asylum, or were already legal residents or Americans.

Again, none were H1-Bs.

"One shouldn't make too much of that," notes Miller, since any group of
new
arrivals could have some "bad actors" in it. But H1-B workers are
"screened"
by their employers for their education and other qualifications.

Under the law, employers hiring foreign tech workers under the H1-B
program
are supposedly unable to find Americans qualified to do the job. They
also
must pay H1-Bs prevailing wages.

Last year American firms brought in only 163,000 H1-B workers, less than
the
ceiling. Miller sees that as evidence that employers are not abusing the
system.

"When the labor market is soft, the number [of H1-B applications] goes
down," he says.

And few complaints have been taken to the Department of Labor about pay
and
benefits, he adds.

But to Mr. Donnelly and Matloff that position is exaggerated. Given the
huge
drop in IT job openings, the number of H1-B applications should have
dropped
far more, they say.

"There are more than plenty of eligible US workers on the market," says
Jessie Garrehy, a veteran recruiter in Silicon Valley, now working for a
tiny San Mateo startup, Cloudmark Inc. It plans to offer improved
antispam
software later this month.

As for pay, H1-B workers are taken advantage of, Donnely and Matloff
say. If
H1-Bs want to live permanently in the US, as most do, they depend on
their
employers to get them a green card - a process that costs $10,000 to
$15,000
in legal fees. So employers can work them long hours, not grant pay
hikes
over the next few years, and refuse them stock options with relative
impunity.

The equal-pay provisions of the law are "full of loopholes," says
Matloff.
"It is extremely well documented that H1-Bs are paid less," including
findings of a National Research Council study.

"They are trapped," he says. "You get a subservient worker."

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