There isn't much support for work visas anymore though, given the employment numbers. SO they are gone, good riddance.
Don't bet on it. I bet you can still get an Indian engineer for less than you can get a newly minted American EE.
Definitely but the visas are gone. They were setup to deal with a shortage not to undermine pay. Of course they did undermine pay but that was not the original intent.
Anyway there are 2 bills in congress, one is the H1-B complete termination and the other is L1 severe restriction, which includes no firing of US workers within 6 mos of hiring an L1, and no L1's working through "third parties" like Tata. So effectively, if these pass and it looks like they will, both visas are dead.
If you have an opinion write congress though, its a hot issue. congress.org - you can see these 2 bills under the "bills" tab.
US may eliminate H1-B visas
Aziz Haniffa in Washington DC | July 16, 2003 13:08 IST
Last Updated: July 16, 2003 13:54 IST
The United States may do away with H1-B visas delivering a knockout punch to Indian IT professionals wanting to take up jobs in the US.
A bill moved by right-wing Republican lawmaker Tom Tancredo in the US Congress to eliminate H1-B visas has every chance of being enacted, said sources.
Tancredo, a right-wing Republican lawmaker from Colorado, is known for his vehemently anti-immigration views.
The sluggish US economy, the uproar over outsourcing and the rising unemployment rate have fuelled the need for steps to keep American jobs from being lost to countries like India, said senior aides to Tancredo.
The aides, including one who drafted Tancredo's 15-line bill proposing the elimination of all visas allowed under the H1-B category, said that "the high-tech industry itself which fought so hard for the expansion of the number of IT professionals allowed into the country are projecting that the technology job outlook will remain soft and that more jobs will be outsourced overseas to countries like India, so why do we need this category at all."
"It is no secret that American workers in the technology industry are losing their jobs to the upsurge in outsourcing, so the Congressman strongly believes that this category (H1-B) has to be done away with to protect the few American jobs and American workers remaining in this industry," they said.
"You bet we are going to push like crazy to make sure this bill progresses and ensure that all those who are for it and against it are counted when we finally try and get a vote on it," one of the aides said.
Tancredo is also chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.
Other Congressional sources, belonging to the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, believe that Tancredo's bill -- which follows those by Republican John Mica of Florida and Democrat DeLauro of Connecticut to restrict the intra-company L-1 visa category -- is a move to gain political mileage and to exploit the rising tide of anti-immigration fervour in the US.
But these sources acknowledge that it is tough to argue against the case made by the likes of Tancredo, Mica, DeLauro and others eager to jump on the bandwagon, when the IT industry itself is bemoaning a decline, first by the bursting of the Internet bubble and now due to massive outsourcing by American IT giants. |
