{"id":23933,"date":"2020-12-07T15:14:18","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T20:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=23933"},"modified":"2020-12-07T15:14:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T20:14:20","slug":"senate-h1b-bill-passes-what-next-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/12\/07\/senate-h1b-bill-passes-what-next-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate and Judge Do Big Tech\u2019s Bidding on H-1B Visas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Employing the legislative legerdemain of \u201cunanimous consent\u201d<\/a> to dispense with floor hearings or debate, the U.S. Senate quickly passed an amended version of the \u201cFairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act\u201d<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The action, conducted in a virtually empty Senate chamber, received scant U.S. media coverage, but the Deccan Chronicle<\/a> in South India jubilantly declared that the measure will \u201chugely benefit hundreds of thousands of Indian professionals in America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill, which now goes back\nto the House for concurrence, raises country caps on H-1B visas to facilitate\nimportation of more Indian tech workers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, some 400,000 workers from India are in line for green cards. That number would swell under the new legislation, with Indians positioned to take\u00a0at least 75 percent<\/a>\u00a0of all H-1B visas going forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBig Tech frames their support for the bill as opposition to discrimination.\u00a0But the real discrimination comes from Silicon Valley\u2019s hiring, not America\u2019s sensible country caps,\u201d former congressman Virgil Goode<\/a> (R-Va.) wrote in The Hill. \u201cUnlike Big Tech\u2019s workforce, the country caps strive for diversity and prevent one nationality from dominating our immigration system.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A day after the Senate vote, the Depa<\/a>r<\/a>tment of Justice<\/a> (DOJ) charged Silicon Valley tech giant Facebook with discriminating against U.S. workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Facebook\nintentionally created a hiring system in which it denied qualified U.S. workers\na fair opportunity to learn about and apply for jobs that Facebook instead\nsought to channel to temporary visa holders Facebook wanted to sponsor for\ngreen cards,” DOJ alleged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever\nbias may exist, a U.S. district judge put in his two cents by blocking Trump\nadministration efforts to reform the H-1B program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To counter workplace abuses, the Labor Department raised prevailing wages<\/a> paid for H-1B visa work and tightened skill requirements for foreigners seeking specialized jobs. But Judge Jeffrey White<\/a>, a George W. Bush appointee holding court across the bay from Facebook\u2019s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, slapped down the rules, saying the department didn\u2019t spend enough time fielding corporate comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid legal wrangling and the political ping-pong game<\/a> over House and Senate H-1B bills, one thing is certain: Approvals of H-1B visas<\/a> have increased since Trump took office. In 2019, H-1B petitions for initial and continuing employment topped 400,000 \u2013 well above any annual total logged during the Obama administration. Nearly 70 percent<\/a> of H-1B tech visas are held by workers from India. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all their posturing about \u201cfairness,\u201d Congress and Judge White are aiding and abetting an exploitative system<\/a> that rewards foreign nationals with jobs that Americans are equipped to do. Better policy, as Goode notes, would \u201cinsist [that]companies hire Americans before recruiting cheap labor from one part of the world. What\u2019s the point in an American getting a STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] degree if our tech corporations won\u2019t hire them?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Employing the legislative legerdemain of \u201cunanimous consent\u201d to dispense with floor hearings or debate, the U.S. Senate quickly passed an amended version of the \u201cFairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act\u201d last week. The action, conducted in a virtually empty Senate chamber, received scant U.S. media coverage, but the Deccan Chronicle in South India jubilantly declared that<\/p>\n

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