<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER  No. 2066 -- 10/20/2009 >>>>>

Go here to see blog version: http://tinyurl.com/GiffordsBill

H-1B legislation has been quiet for awhile, but it looks like that is going
to change.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) introduced legislation to Congress that
would double the H-1B cap, and in some circumstances triple it. The way it
would work is that the yearly cap of 65,000 would be raised to 130,000 but
if 130,000 H-1Bs were actually used, the cap would go up to 180,000 the
following year.

The Giffords bill will guarantee that during the next economic recovery
Americans will not get the jobs. It would be far more accurate to call this
the "Jobless Recovery Act" instead of "Innovation Employment Act". Bill
Gates praised the new bill so it is officially Microsoft certified
junkware.

The Giffords bill is not on Thomas.gov yet. Today I called her office to
ask what the status of the bill is, and they said it is in Congress but not
formally introduced. The staffer was vague on dates but said it may be
several days to a week before the bill is formally introduced, and he
hinted that there may be some modifications to the text of the bill before
it is introduced. The staffer said that portions of the bill may still be
in the writing stage. It's probably safe to say that except for minor
differences the bill will be identical to her 2008 bill.

The article written by Grant Gross, which appears in Computerworld and CIO
contains some errors. First of all the title is misleading because it says
the cap would be doubled, but it could actually triple. The bill hasn’t
been formally introduced as he indicated. Gross is probably correct about
the details of the bill, but he is may be getting confused by Giffords’
2008 bill called the "Innovation Employment Act", HR 5630, which is
available on Thomas.gov. Both of those articles have comments that are
worth reading.

The Gross article had some strangeness coming from the Giffords office to
justify this bill. Giffords and her PR secretary have been saying similar
things since 2008, so I believe the quote is accurate:

   Giffords sees the importance of H-1Bs because Southern Arizona has
   been growing as a hub for tech companies, Karamargin added.
   "There's a need to stay competitive and keep the momentum growing,"
   he added. "That means making sure the talent is available to drive
   the local and national tech economy."

Folks, I'm here in Arizona and I have been to Southern Arizona many times.
I live in the Phoenix area which is considered central Arizona. The only
hubs you are going to see are from the wheels of the jeeps and trucks the
coyotes use to smuggle illegal aliens and drugs across the border. The city
of Tucson has been shedding what few high tech jobs it had, and there is
nothing between there and Mexico besides a few cowboy bars and junk food
restaurants. If you head out towards Tombstone or Naco you might be able to
find a few technician jobs installing the virtual border fence, but don't
expect to find engineering jobs since most of the equipment will probably
come from China.

Arizona doesn't need more tech workers -- we have enough of them drawing
unemployment. The jobless techies in California would fill the needs of
Arizona about 1000 times over so Karamargin's claim that Arizona needs to
import techies from foreign countries is downright wacky.

Giffords' connections with Indian special interests make me believe that
the timing of this bill has something to do with the India Trade Policy
Forum meeting that will take place in India on October 26 where India will
be requesting an H-1B increase. We know India will be asking for more H-1Bs
and this bill will give them what they want. It wouldn't surprise me at all
if Giffords goes to that meeting in New Delhi, but so far her website
doesn't list it on her agenda. She signed a letter which makes me very
suspicious: "Building a Strategic Partnership: U.S.-India Relations in the
Wake of Mumbai".

http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/111/ackerman022609.pdf

Giffords seems to curry favors (sorry about the pun) from Indians. For
example, the "Taste of India" restaurant gave her campaign about $1,600 in
contributions. On a more serious note, she voted YES for the India Nuclear
Agreement.

The sleaziness doesn't stop with curry however. Make no mistake about it --
Giffords is a Bill Gates girl. She attended his sham hearing on March 2008
before the House Science and Technology Committee and she asked softball
questions about his desire to have unlimited H-1Bs. Giffords isn't just a
Gates groupie though -- Gates makes sure that she gets paid handsomely.
AmeriPAC gave her $10,000 and AmeriPAC gets funding from Microsoft.

The Giffords bill is a significant threat to large segments of the American
workforce. Take it very seriously!


REFERENCES:

Rep. Giffords Bill To Triple H-1B Visa Cap
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2009/10/21/rep-giffords-bill-to-triple-cap-on
-h-1b-visas/
or
http://tinyurl.com/GiffordsBill

http://watchdog.net/empl/taste%20of%20india
Contributions by Taste of India

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2010&cid=N00027
829&type=I
Top 20 Contributors Congressman Gabrielle Giffords 2007 - 2008

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cmte=c00271338&cycle=2008
AmeriPAC

http://giffords.house.gov/contact/
Giffords Website -- If you call the office be sure to ask for an
immigration or economic staffer because the front line staffers are
clueless college kids.

http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2009/10/20/india-to-ask-us-for-more-h-1b-visa
s/
India to ask US for more H-1B visas

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139623/Bill_would_double_cap_on_H_1B
_visas

http://www.cio.com/article/505419/Bill_Would_Double_Cap_on_H_1B_Visas

Bill Would Double Cap on H-1B Visas

– Grant Gross, IDG News Service

October 20, 2009
A bill introduced in the U.S. Congress would double the number of immigrant
worker visas available each year under the H-1B program, earning the
legislation praise from Microsoft.

The Truth About the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2009

The Innovation Employment Act, introduced by Representative Gabrielle
Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, late Thursday, would increase the cap in
H-1B visas from 65,000 a year to 130,000 a year. In addition, there would
be no cap on H-1B applications for foreign graduate students attending U.S.
colleges and studying science, technology and related fields. Currently,
there's a 20,000-a-year cap on visas for graduate students in all fields.

The legislation would increase the H-1B cap to 180,000 in the years 2010 to
2015 if the 130,000 cap is reached the year before.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates called for an increase in the H-1B visa cap
while testifying before the House of Representatives Science and Technology
Committee Wednesday. In recent years, the H-1B cap has been filled days --
or even the same day -- after the government opened the application period.

"We provide the world's best universities ... and the students are not
allowed to stay and work in the country," Gates said Wednesday. "The fact
is, [other countries'] smartest people want to come here and that's a huge
advantage to us, and in a sense, we're turning them away."

Microsoft praised Giffords' bill. The legislation "would boost America's
competitiveness by giving U.S. employers the flexibility they need to hire
the best talent available to fill a severe shortage of qualified U.S.
high-skilled workers," Jack Krumholtz, management director of federal
government affairs for Microsoft, said in a statement. The bill would also
increase U.S. jobs; Microsoft hires an additional four people to support
each H-1B worker, Krumholtz said.

The U.S. government will begin accepting visa applications for next year in
April, and Microsoft predicted the cap would be filled the same day, as it
was in 2007. "The current system effectively prevents American companies
from hiring this year's foreign-born university graduates," Krumholtz
added.

The Giffords' bill would also increase penalties for H-1B fraud and allows
the U.S. Department of Labor to reject H-1B applications for "clear
indicators of fraud," in addition the current rule of rejecting only
applications that are inaccurate or incomplete. The bill puts important
safeguards on the H-1B program in place, said C.J. Karamargin, a spokesman
for Giffords.

The bill would prohibit companies from hiring H-1B workers, then
outsourcing them to other companies, he said. H-1B opponents have
complained that outsourcing companies are among the top users of H-1B
visas.

The would also prohibit companies with more than 50 employees that have
more than half of their staff as H-1B workers from hiring more H-1Bs, and
it would prohibit employers from advertising jobs as available only to H-1B
workers, Karamargin said. "The bill would put some teeth in the Department
of Labor's oversight role" of the program, he said.

Giffords sees the importance of H-1Bs because Southern Arizona has been
growing as a hub for tech companies, Karamargin added. "There's a need to
stay competitive and keep the momentum growing," he added. "That means
making sure the talent is available to drive the local and national tech
economy."

But despite some attempts at addressing H-1B fraud, Giffords' bill would do
little to address worker concerns about the program, said Ron Hira, a
public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and former
chairman of the Career and Workforce Policy Committee at the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA (IEEE-USA).

"This bill takes none of the concerns raised by American technology workers
seriously," Hira said. He called the bill a "massive" increase in the H-1B
cap.

"This bill will basically do nothing to stem employers from using the H-1B
program as a source of cheap labor and to substitute for American workers,"
Hira said. "It doesn't require any kind of labor market test --
demonstrating that a shortage actually exists before hiring an H-1B."

The bill doesn't fix "serious problems" in setting wage floors for H-1B
workers, Hira added. "No matter how one dresses up this bill, it would do
nothing to curb the practice of companies bringing in computer programmers
for $12 per hour to displace U.S. workers," he said. "If this bill were to
be passed as written, it would do serious damage to the American
information technology labor market, displacing many American workers,
discouraging the next generation of students from entering the career, and
speed up the offshoring of high-wage high-technology jobs."

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