United Press International September 27, 2000, Wednesday
By STEVE SAILER, UPI National Correspondent and PETER ROFF, UPI Political Analyst


For H1-B: PETER ROFF
For the last two weeks, the Senate has been discussing increasing the number of non-immigrants allowed to enter the United States under the H-1B visa.

This program was created in 1952. In 1990, during a period of new government restrictions on immigration, the H-1B visa program was capped at 65,000 participants per year. In 1998, that cap was reached in May. Responding to complaints from the business community, particularly in the area of high-tech, Congress passed and the president signed into law the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act (ACWIA) that raised the cap to 115,000 non-immigrant workers.

Immigration always seems controversial, and workplace-driven immigration even more so. Critics of the program say that the H-1B visa workers are simply taking away jobs that could be filled by Americans and that the idea of a shortage of skilled workers has been manufactured by high-tech companies seeking access to cheap labor. Critics such Norman Matloff of the University of California at Berkley argue with heart-wrenching sincerity about the odd computer programmer who is unable to find work in this booming economy. Unfortunately, these critics routinely fail to provide statistical support for their assertions.

According to the hi-tech industry, most H-1B visa workers are engineers and computer programmers, essential cogs in the information machine that is changing America and its economy.

Industry argues there is a domestic shortage of skilled workers necessary to fill these jobs and keep the information machine humming. In April 2000, the Information Technology Association of America, the leading industry trade group on this issue, produced a survey of hiring managers that said 843,000 IT positions can be reasonably expected to go unfilled this year alone.

In the information age, human capital is vital. America has an extraordinary leg up on the rest of the world because of immigration, past and present. H-1B workers are the leading edge of the future because they allow America to attract many more of the best and the brightest from around the world in the high- tech field and maintain its competitive edge.

The provision states the H-1B visas should be issued only for jobs for which no American can be found to fill. Therefore these workers are, by definition, not taking work from anyone currently in the United States. Moreover, their presence has a multiplier effect on the U.S. job market. Their labors increase profits for employers, which is good for the stock market; create innovation in the marketplace, which is good for America's competativeness; and they spend the money they earn here, creating jobs up and down the line.

The only real alternative is to ship the jobs these workers would fill overseas so the multiplier effects occur in the other countries -- a move that would cost jobs in the United States. There are high-tech companies that have moved software development operations overseas as a result of their inability to find enough skilled workers in the United States.

An added, if unintended, benefit of employing H-1B workers in the domestic marketplace is the knowledge they bring about markets overseas. Their knowledge of educational systems and market structures; and the contacts and language skills that they have help maintain the American competitive edge that is lost to societies more closed to workers and immigrants from other nations. This is particularly important concerning the emerging markets for American goods and services in population-rich India and China, the home country for many of these workers.

H-1B workers producing some of the best and newest products are the cutting-edge America needs if it is to continue to be the world leader in the global information market.



Against H1-B: Steve Sailer

Employers love the H-1B program and want Congress to expand it. Why? Because H-1B foreign workers admitted to the U.S. for six years can't quit their jobs.

What if another company offers them more money? Just as the notorious Dred Scott decision required the federal government to chase down escaped slaves and return them to their masters, the federal government deports any H-1B worker who tries to flee his high-tech plantation. Not surprisingly, lacking all bargaining leverage, these indentured servants get paid less than free workers.

But the damage done by H-1B extends to American workers as well. As Abraham Lincoln explained to Stephen Douglas in 1858, free citizens' wages go down when the federal government forces them to compete with workers in bondage. Since the H-1B system lowers salaries for high-tech workers, fewer free citizens then enter the field. In turn, the employers scream "Shortages!" and ask Congress to let them bring in even more smart serfs.

Considering the vast capital gains reaped by investors in technology corporations in recent years, why should the government prevent the salaried workers who helped create this vast new wealth from sharing in it? Why is the federal government interfering in the free market to help Bill Gates and other multi-billionaires get even richer at the expense of their workers?

The "need" for short-term H-1B workers is an indictment of how corrupt our immigration system for admitting permanent residents has become. Few policies could benefit the United States more in the long run than a wise method for carefully picking the best applicants for immigration. Instead, we've let interest groups such as grape growers, computer companies, and recent immigrants largely privatize the functioning and benefits of this vastly important duty of our democracy.

If these temporary workers admitted under H-1B are as brilliant and valuable as the Silicon Valley lobbyists claim, why are we kicking them out after six years? Why is there no room to admit them as permanent residents?

The sad fact is that most permanent residents are accepted today not because they'd benefit America as a whole, nor even because they'd make Larry Ellison richer, but solely because they are related to somebody. Under our "family reunification" policy of giving new immigrants the right to bring over their adult relatives, nepotism, not America's need, determines who can become an American citizen.

Thus, the quality of permanent immigrants has been dropping, as Harvard economist George Borjas documented. In 1998, only 6 percent of new permanent residents were admitted because they were skilled or educated. The vast majority got in because of family ties.

If we denied America's high-tech zillionaires the H-1B program for importing computer-age coolies, they'd instead lobby to improve our overall immigration system. They'd demand America admit more high-IQ computer geeks and fewer mediocre brother-in-laws. All the Sand Hill Road set would have to do is cash in a few stock options, fund a few think tanks, lease a few congressmen, and, voila, we'd have a more rational immigration law. But we won't get that until we get rid of H-1B.