Industry claims that 65,000 H-1b quota reached in one day is evidence that the cap is too low. But these visas are being disproportionately used by Indian consulting firms who hire disproportionately – if not exclusively – Indians. By paying below market wage these foreign consulting firms are able to secure a larger share of U.S. public and private sector contracts, and ship as much as work as possible back to India to even lower-paid workers. 

H-1b has spawned a cottage industry of consulting firms staffed by H-1b workers:

http://www.programmersguild.org/docs/lowest_paying_2004.htm

An additional cottage industry is the $100 million industry of immigration attorneys processing these visas. (American Immigration Lawyers Association is a key advocate for raising the cap.)

H-1b – should the cap be increased? Or would the U.S. be better off if the foreign consulting firms packed up and allowed U.S. consulting firms that hire Americans at American wages to compete for U.S. contracts.  

Bill Gates says that there should be no quota. And there is no requirement to even consider qualified U.S. workers – much less hire them – before an employer can sponsor an H-1b worker. Microsoft managers have admitted that Microsoft already receives thousands of applications from U.S. workers for each position.

VIDEO CLIP - Courtesy of www.forthecause.us

http://www.forthecause.us/ftc-video-CNN-H1B-Visa_Cap_070405.wmv

LOU DOBBS TRANSCRIPT - April 5, 2006

More proof tonight that business is fragrantly abusing America's visa program to replace hard-working Americans with cheap foreign labor. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services now reports that big business snatched up the annual quota of 65,000 new H1B visas for foreign worker visas in just one day this week.

As Bill Tucker now reports, corporate America wants even more cheap labor entering the country.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): H1B workers are irresistible to American business. Claims by the corporate elite that it's not about the cheap labor don't ring true.

A soon-to-be-released study from the Center for Immigration Studies finds that wages reported for H1B workers averaged $12,000 below the median wage for the U.S. worker in the same occupation and in the same location in 2005. It was $16,000 less for computer workers. No wonder America's richest man recently told Congress the program should be expanded.

BILL GATES, FMR. CEO, MICROSOFT: I don't think there should be any limit.

TUCKER: What Bill Gates knows and isn't saying, but what a former director at ICE will say is that for some, there is no limit.

VICTOR CERDA, FMR. CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT DIR.: Homeland Security is announcing that the cap was met, the 65,000 cap. That doesn't include necessarily the 20,000, the first 20,000 who earned masters degrees in U.S. universities. They're excluded.

TUCKER: Also excluded are universities and nonprofit research organizations. They are unlimited.

Nor do H1B workers call in any one category. All the worker needs is a college degree. Even fashion models can apply. The biggest group under the cap are tech workers.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service recently released data on H1B approvals in 2004 and 2005. Nearly 117,000 visa applications were approved for the fiscal year 2004, 130,000 for 2005. Both years a far cry from 65,000.

And a company doesn't have to be American to apply.

KIM BERRY, THE PROGRAMMERS GUILD: The industry's created this perception that there's this great need, and that's why we bring in the workers. What's happening, the top three users are foreign consulting firms. First, they bring in the workers, and then they aggressively try to find work for these workers.

TUCKER: Those three companies are India's Infosys Technologies, Wipro, and Cognizant Technology Solutions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TUCKER: And as you might expect, India's National Association of Software and Services Companies was quick to complain.

The organization, known as NASSCOM, is made up of 1,100 companies in India, many of whom make their money off work outsourced to India, and engineers working on H1B visas. NASSCOM thinks the cap should be large enough for "market forces to operate freely," Lou, as it did when the cap was 195,000, just about three years ago.

DOBBS: You know, it's a competitive world. I give those Indian companies all the credit in the world.

TUCKER: Absolutely.

DOBBS: My complaint are with the idiots who run the United States government and who permit this kind of conduct. I mean, I love the fact that we can't even control the number of H1B visas. Even with the cap, they overrun it by, say, double.

TUCKER: Right.

DOBBS: Which is ludicrous to begin with.

No one really has a clear count on the number of these visas out there, or how many people are still in the country with them. That's your Citizenship and Immigration Services at work.

And then you have people like Bill Gates saying it should be unlimited. Guess what, Bill, old buddy -- it is unlimited the way this government is operated. And the people being punished, American workers as a result.

TUCKER: And it's not like we don't know, Lou. There have been studies going back to 1995 from the government telling us that.

DOBBS: Well, and they were supposed to be, by the way, providing accurate reporting on that every year since. But mysteriously, that just has not quite happened.

We should point out -- you mentioned those three Indian companies. We should point out that 70 percent of -- 70 percent of all of those visa applications are originating with those Indian corporations. Those aren't American corporations seeking those workers.

Now, the other side of this is, I'm thrilled to have some people in this country who want to come here, even temporarily, who have college educations and can provide necessary skills. But if corporate America really wants to back it up, and if those fine folks from India want to back it up with emphasis, (INAUDIBLE), and so forth, maybe they ought to lift their wages up to the prevailing American wage, and then we wouldn't be so skeptical of their intent.

Bill Tucker, thank you very much.

These son of a guns. We'll get them.