Employment-based Visas

America's highest-skilled workers are being displaced from their professions by employment-based visas:

H-1b: Congress has authorized employers to sponsor and hire foreign workers regardless of whether qualified Americans are available to fill the positions. Employers can legally force Americans to train their foreign H-1b replacements as a condition of receiving a severance package.
L-1: Congress has authorized employers to bring foreign workers into the U.S. for one year while continuing to pay them their foreign wage level.
PERM: Congress has authorized employers to sponsor foreign workers for green cards by simply running a few classified ads and then to find any reason possible to disqualify all American applicants.

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Category	Article
H-1b News Article	Chrysler tech center workers may have lost jobs to H-1B contractors, union claims Karen Trevaski worked at Chrylser LLC's technical center in Auburn Hills, Mich., until she was laid off two weeks ago along with 119 other employees. But Trevaski claims that foreign workers with H-1B visas remain on the job at Chrysler, using software systems similar to the one she used to design automotive parts. United Auto Workers Local 412, which represents the laid-off tech workers, is considering whether it should file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. Source: ComputerWorld Author: Patrick Thibodeau Published: Friday, February 15, 2008
H-1b News Article	Are H-1B Workers Getting Bilked? Article exposes how State Farm laid off U.S. software professionals then outsourced the work to Indian consulting firm Patni. Patni then paid the Indian developers on H-1b as low as $12 per hour, and required extensive overtime in other to meet their promised salary of $44,000. The Programmers Guild blog has additional analysis: http://programmersguild.blogspot.com/2008/02/businessweek-exposes-how-industry.html Source: Business Week Author: Moira Herbst Published: Thursday, January 31, 2008
H-1b Blog	Oppose U.S. software jobs being filled by H-1b/L-1 foreign workers (See the discussion thread) New organization www.HireAmericansFirst.org is gearing up to oppose Industry efforts to increase the H-1b visa cap in 2008, and to educate Congress on the harm caused by the H-1b program. Please join us. Source: DailyKOS Author: Kim Berry Published: Monday, January 21, 2008
H-1b News Article	H1-B questions hit EDN readers' hot button The article talks about a survey put out by EDN magazine asking the following questions: 1) I am working on an H1-B visa, and it has been a fantastic opportunity”; “I believe that we are short on qualified engineers in the United States, and I support the idea of increasing the number of H1-B visas 2) My career was harmed when I lost an opportunity to another engineer that was a part of the H1-B program. Source: Electronic Design News Author: Maury Wright, Editorial Director Published: Thursday, October 18, 2007
H-1b Commentary - opposed	DURBIN AND GRASSLEY INTRODUCE FIRST BIPARTISAN H-1B VISA REFORM BILL TO PROTECT AMERICAN WORKERS [WASHINGTON, DC]- U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) introduced "The H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act of 2007" to overhaul the H-1B and L-1 visa programs to give priority to American workers...The Durbin-Grassley bill would require all employers to pledge that they have made a good-faith effort to hire American workers first... , the employer must first advertise the job opening for 30 days on a Department of Labor (DOL) website. Source: Senator Dick Durbin Website Author: Senator Dick Durbin Published: Monday, April 02, 2007
H-1b News Article	Immigration Reform: Americans First? [Robert Hoffman, VP for government and public affairs at Oracle (ORCL) and spokesman for Compete America] says that a requirement for U.S. companies to try to hire American workers first doesn't make sense. A requirement to hire Americans first would present particular problems for Indian outsourcing companies that operate in the U.S. Wipro (WIT) and Infosys Technologies (INFY) are among the most active users of H-1B visas, typically to bring Indian employees to work in their U.S. operations.... Source: Business Week Author: Peter Elstrom Published: Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Activists/Members in the news	IT worker who became an H-1B activist ends his fight Five years ago, some unemployed IT workers in Connecticut formed an advocacy group to fight against the H-1B and L-1 visa programs. And the group, called The Organization for the Rights of American Workers (TORAW), was successful in getting visa-reform legislation introduced in Congress. But now TORAW is disbanding, according to John Bauman, president of the Meriden, Conn.-based group. Source: Computerworld Author: Patrick Thibodeau Published: Friday, December 21, 2007
Tech Worker Employment Tips	How to recognise a good programmer It’s not as easy as it sounds. CV (resume) experience is only of limited use here, because great programmers don’t always have the “official” experience to demonstrate that they’re great. In fact, a lot of that CV experience can be misleading. Yet there are a number of subtle cues that you can get, even from the CV, to figure out whether someone’s a great programmer. Source: Inter-sections blog Author: Daniel Published: Sunday, January 13, 2008
H-1b Commentary - opposed	No, The Tech Skills Shortage Doesn't Exist Ron Hira hits the industry below the belt will irrefutable facts: H-1B and L-1 guest worker visa programs are vital to their offshore outsourcing business model, as U.S. companies rotate employees for knowledge transfer and to shift work overseas... the wages of new H-1B computer workers dropped 16% from $59,708 in 2002 to $50,000 by 2005 in constant 2005 dollars. Source: InformationWeek Author: Ron Hira Published: Saturday, January 12, 2008

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