Those of us who went through the H-1B expansion battle in 1998 know well that industry does not have good faith when it comes to H-1B visas. Now that the H-1B visa has again come to the attention of the public, let me take this opportunity to describe how things work in Washington. Read more...

The recent incident where a woman asked president Obama why we are importing foreign workers on H-1B visas has attracted much attention to the issue...and has brought out the worst in American media. Read more...

President Obama says that "The H-1B should be reserved only for those companies who say they cannot find somebody in that particular field."

Well Mr. President, when are you and the Democrats going to propose legislation to ensure that only companies that cannot find Americans can get H-1B visas? Read more...

The Washington Post documents Rep. Tim Griffin's (R-Ark) difficultly in deciding on a name for a new bill to give green cards to aliens simply because they get graduate degrees in the U.S. He apparently started with the NERDS Act (New Employees for Research & Development and STEM) but settled on BRAIN Act (Bringing and Retaining Accomplished Innovators for the Nation). Read more...

Social Security Administration's Office of Inspector General has a new report out, "H-1B Workers' Use of Social Security Numbers". The OIG found that about 18 percent of Social Security numbers issued to H-1B workers were being used to report wages from sources other than the approved employer or were reporting no wages at all.

This follows a 2008 report from USCIS that found a violation rate in the H-1B program of over 20 percent.

The most recent Department of Labor Inspector General report on H-1B is available as well.

All of these audits from government agencies provide a striking contrast to the propaganda view of the H-1B program put forth by lobbyists.



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Advocates for cheap-labor guestworker programs, like H-1B, long ago found a solution to their problem of lacking data to support their position: simply make it up.

The latest example comes in a press release from MonolithIC 3D Inc. That press release states: Read more...

Over the years industry lobbyists have come up with a number of different marketing campaigns for cheap labor in technology fields. In the past we have seen the "best and brightest" campaign and the "We educate them – why send them home?" campaign. The pitch from these used car salesmen is that all these H-1B workers are really entrepreneurs ready to start companies and build up the economy. America just needs to set these H-1B workers loose to revive the economy. Read more...

The U.S. imports about 100,000 people a year on H-1B visas. The public is constantly told that this mass of labor imports represent the "Best and Brightest" in the world.

Where are the big accomplishments from those on H-1B visas?

The citations of "H-1B" accomplishments from program supporters illustrate this problem. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that: Read more...

This week provided a wonderful example of why public funding for NPR should be cut off.

In the tech industry it has become routine for Americans to be replaced by lower-paid foreign workers on H-1B visas. The repeating pattern is for the U.S. employer to contract with an H-1B bodyshop to supply labor to replace its American workers. The U.S. employer then requires its American workers train their foreign replacements. Read more...

We have previously reported that the GAO has released a new study on the H-1B program titled "H-1B Visa Program: Reforms Are Needed to Minimize the Risks and Costs of Current Program". As you can tell from the title, this report does not paint a pretty picture of the H-1B program, like all the other government reports that came before it.

Now the lobbyist spin on the GAO report is coming in. Read more...

The GAO has released a new report, "H-1B Visa Program: Reforms Are Needed to Minimize the Risks and Costs of Current Program", as my colleague David North has mentioned.

The GAO's findings include:

• 1 percent of the employers get 30 percent of the visas.
• Most interviewed companies said the H-1B cap and program created costs, but were not factors in their decisions to move R&D overseas
• Restricted agency oversight and statutory changes weaken protections for U.S. workers

I recently wrote about how two separate newspapers ran nearly word-for-word identical editorials on H-1B visas. The piece at issue he was published as an opinion of the newspaper without attribution to another source.

It has happened again with the same text. This time at September 26 editorial in the Ventura County Star: Read more...

Political correctness is the guiding force in most of the mainstream media's coverage of immigration issues. Very often the media's hunger for political correctness goes from out of touch with reality into the truly bizarre.

A September 5 editorial from the Metrowest Daily News in Massachusetts starts off like this:

In a rare show of bipartisanship last month, Congress approved a $600 million border-security bill to help cut off the flow of illegal immigrants.

I would like to bring an urgent situation to Attorney General Holder's attention. That is that the state of New Jersey is unconstitutionally interfering with the federal government's authority under Article I of the Constitution to coin money and punish counterfeiting.

New Jersey's action creates a patchwork of state and local policies would seriously disrupt federal currency enforcement. Read more...

The new law in Arizona addressing immigration enforcement has produced the predictable response from the drive-by media. The Denver Post tells us, "that the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government, not states, authority over immigration"

The U.S. Constitution, Article 1, § 8 states:

"The Congress shall have Power ...To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization"

Below that passage, one also finds: Read more...

I read Sen. Reid's call to address the "challenge of fixing our broken immigration system" with great amusement.

Sen. Reid correctly notes that, "We have to replace this broken system with one that works."

The paradox, one that I have noted here previously, is that fixing the immigration system must be done by the same folks that broke it in the first place: Congress. Read more...

I have finished reading Moving Millions: How Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration by Jeffrey Kaye. This book documents the economic forces that drive immigration. For those who are not intimately involved in the issues of employment-based immigration, this book is likely to be an eye-opener. Read more...

For those of us who support the principle that American citizenship should have value and that American workers should not be replaced by foreign workers in their own country, good news came on Saturday: Sen. Bob Bennett has lost his re-nomination fight in Utah. Read more...

Reading the Reid-Schumer-Menendez "Conceptual Proposal for Immigration Reform" drives home the inherent paradox of fixing the immigration system:

The same group that broke it in the first place­ -- Congress­ -- would have to do the fixing.

Reid-Schumer-Menendez demonstrate they are not up to the task. Read more...

A couple of news items have converged with research. Recently, I have been reading the legislative history of the H-1B program. It is interesting to see how some things have changed and other things keep repeating. The H-1B visa was created in the Immigration Act of 1990. From the House Judiciary Committee we have the findings that:

The Committee believes that increased immigration levels should not lead to a dependence on foreign workers. [Igor I. Kavass, Bernard D. Reams, Jr., "The Immigration Act of 1990: A Legislative History of Pub. L. No. 101-649 45 1997"]

Recently I authored a posting titled "The American-Bashers," describing how those who seek to increase the supply of cheap foreign labor in technical fields have resorted to name-calling and the bashing of U.S. natives to promote their agenda. Apparently to prove my point, "The Startup Visa and Why the Xenophobes Need to Go Back into Their Caves" by Vivek Wadhwa appeared just two days later. Read more...

Those of us who seek to change U.S. immigration policy so that it will no longer serve as a tool to displace, disrupt, and impoverish working Americans get subject to a lot of name calling: "xenophobe," "anti-immigrant," "racist."

Those who bash Americans generally get away unscathed in the press. There has been a surge an American-bashing articles recently. This one, claiming Americans don't do their "fair share," comes from Electronic Design news: Read more...

Over the past couple of days I have read a couple of editorials on guest workers in which the level of arrogance has reached new heights.

This gem comes from the Austin American Statesman. In it, regular contributor John Young asserts that those of us who want to limit the number of foreign workers do so because our "policy is driven by wanting to curb the flow of brown-skinned people."

Holy race card, Batman! Read more...

I just returned home from vacation. While doing the crossword puzzle in the in-flight magazine I came across:

44 Across: Dobbs of CNN

That was a bit out of date. Lou Dobbs has left CNN. And the lunatic fringe is celebrating. Much of what is being written about Dobbs borders on libelous. Read more...

The concept behind the "Big Lie" is that if you make the lie a big one and repeat it often enough, it becomes a fact.

A Big Lie that has been prominent in the immigration debate has been the existence of a shortage of tech workers. The repeated claims a tech worker shortage has been the rallying cry for industry calls for more cheap foreign labor, generally on H-1B visas. Read more...

The Wall Street Journal has a front page story today on that portrays a sharp decline in the number of H-1B visas.

The paper reports that "only 46,700" applications had been made for 65,000 H-1B visas available.

Intel's director of work-force policy and manager of the firm's immigration policies, Jenifer Verdery, proclaims that, "The fact that the 65,000-visa cap hasn't been reached this year shows that the market will temper demand when necessary" Read more...

The H-1B visa, that was supposed to be used to fill jobs where U.S. workers are unavailable, has created the business of importing people on H-1B visas. These companies are known as "H-1B bodyshops".

The way the system normally works is that a bodyshop gets H-1B visas for workers then rents those workers to other companies. The end company pays the the bodyshop who then pays the workers on H-1B visas. This arrangement allows companies to circumvent worker protections under the law and has detached H-1B usage from economic need. Read more...

The Indian news media is notable for its candor in regard to the H-1B visa program. While advocates in America will proudly claim with straight faces (and 13-inch Pinocchio noses) that H-1B cannot be used for cheap labor, the Indian press will tout the benefits of cheap labor that H-1B provides. Read more...

The U.S. currently has the very sensible policy of not allowing student visas to be the gateway to immigration. Currently the law requires that those seeking student visas must prove they intend only to come to the U.S. to study and will return home at the completion of their studies. There are, however, mechanisms for some students to remain in the U.S. after graduation. Still, as a general policy, the immigration system expects that one comes to the U.S. on a student visa only to be a student. Read more...

One again H-1B season is upon us. Today USCIS starts taking application for next year's batch of H-1B visas. Although we are in the midst of a severe economic downturn, it is likely the entire visa quota will be exhausted -- demonstrating industry's demand for cheap labor is insatiable. Read more...