Debate Rages over Employment Visa Program

By Debjani Chakravarty
June 4, 2007 9:25 AM

With India and China emerging as economic powerhouses, there is a new reality in the global financial market. Digital communications have not only blurred national boundaries but also spawned a global labor market with unprecedented mobility.

The H-1B visa program is an example of that. It allows U.S. companies to hire high-skilled professionals from other countries for up to six years. With an H-1B visa, college-educated professionals can work here in a specialty occupation, such as engineering, computer programming, software development and other high-skill areas.

The program has led to a fierce debate between those who foresee prosperity through imported skilled labor and those who predict a grim future for displaced U.S. professionals. Supporters include employers in the information technology and other specialty industries that routinely pressure Congress to expand the H-1B visa program.
Currently, the program is capped at 65,000 visas but proponents would like to see the cap raised to 150,000 or removed altogether.

Opponents range from professional organizations, such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers USA (IEEE-USA), to anti-immigration policy groups, such as the Center for Immigration Studies. These groups maintain the program displaces U.S. professionals and brings down the salaries for all those in that particular field. IEEE-USA's Web site strongly supports capping the annual number of H-1B visas at 65,000 and using the income from fees to train displaced American professionals.

A study released in May from the Center for Immigration Studies said the H-1B program in many instances fails to pay foreign workers the prevailing wage as required, with 90 percent of visa holders earning less than the U.S. median wage for that position.
"The findings in this report clearly demonstrate that the legal definition of the prevailing wage requirement does not ensure H-1B workers are paid the actual market prevailing wage," it reported.

The program's popularity among employers is no joke.

Within hours on the first day the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) started accepting applications this year, 150,000 applications were filed. That's more than double the yearly cap of 65,000 visas. For the first time, the USIS will use a lottery system to issue visas.

The high-tech labor demands can't be filled domestically because fewer U.S. students are attending graduate school for engineering, said Partha Dasgupta, an associate professor of computer science and engineering at Arizona State University. With an undergraduate degree they can find a well-paying job without spending the extra time in graduate school.

U.S. Census Bureau data confirm that for Americans over 25, about a quarter have completed college, yet only 3 percent finish their master's degree and 2 percent their Ph.D. This shortage creates a scarcity of technical professionals.

In addition, U.S. high school students don't have a solid foundation in math, said Dawn McLaren, a research economist at JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center at Arizona State University.

That reality is reflected in the large number of students who take remedial math courses in college. A recent study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that 40 percent of high school seniors failed to perform at the basic level on a national math test.

Staunch opponents like Tancredo believe that the H-1B program will depress salaries in highly skilled occupations, making them less attractive to Americans. Eventually the number of American students pursuing science and engineering careers will drop further, leading to more unemployment and under-employment. This would erode the middle class -- and with it, America's strength, moral values, national pride and integrity, opponents say.

But not all see it as a zero sum game.

Bradford Kidd, a director of information technology and services for a Phoenix-based software company, said the H-1B program can be a needed benefit for employers, as long as it is used in moderation.

"There are situations where there are not enough skills or labor for a position," he said. "But you probably don't want to flood the market with people who would essentially dilute the salary pool. That's a situation where employers gain and employees lose."

India native Uday, an H-1B visa holder and project manager at an IT company in Phoenix who asked that his last name not be used, said that argument doesn't make sense.

"Compared to the total number of the all-American technical workforce and the number of jobs available, the 65,000 cap on H-1B visas is a ridiculously small number for foreign workers and can't be a threat to the American economy."

A IEEE-USA report estimated a total of 5.8 million technical jobs in the U.S. in 2006.
According to Uday, American companies find it financially advantageous to hire professionals from Southeast Asia because they'll often work for less than the $65,000 median annual wage in the IT industry. English-speaking engineers in Asian countries are willing to accept the lower wages in exchange for global opportunities that expose them to new work cultures and technologies. And the wages are still high compared with what they'd make in their home countries.

It's really a win-win situation for both the employer and the employee, said Uday, who recently applied for a green card.

While some H-1B holders love the U.S. lifestyle, others are keen to return home after the stipulated six years. Uday said the standard of living in Asia has improved along with its fast-growing economy.

"India and China today have global cities with the look and feel and amenities comparable to any American city," he said. "I've stopped thinking in terms of geographies anymore. Tomorrow I might want to be a part of the action in China, or the day after, of Singapore."

The scarcity of highly skilled professionals doesn't exist only in the realm of software jobs. S. K. Ghosh, president of a structural engineering consulting firm in Chicago, says that even fields that aren't as "hot," such as seismic construction, need employees with specialized knowledge. More than 70 percent of Ghosh's employees are engineers from Asia who came to the U.S. for their doctorate degree.

For the past two years, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has been campaigning to remove the cap on H-1B visas -- or at least to raise it. In an interview with David S. Broder of The Washington Post, Gates said, "It is kind of ironic to have someone graduate from Stanford Computer Science Department and there's not enough H-1B visas, so they have to go back to India."

While individuals from Gates to Ghosh share this view, opposition is brewing against the H-1B program.

"I went to a church in Scottsdale [Ariz.] with my colleague's family, and this person kept talking about how non-believers in the form of H-1B visa holders were swarming the country," said Ahmad. "What's interesting is how my colleague later tried to defend this viewpoint. He told me that the scarcity of skilled professionals in the United States is artificial."

The controversy over the H-1B visa program isn't likely to abate anytime soon. That means workers like Ahmad might have to live with the uneasy feeling that they're not welcome in this country.