The US high-tech industry has opposed the immigration bill being debated in the Senate aimed at dealing with an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.
SILICON VALLEY: The US high-tech industry has opposed the immigration bill being debated in the Senate aimed at dealing with an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, saying the measures as currently drafted would harm the American technology industry.
The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), a lobbying group representing high-tech companies, says the bill won't do enough to compensate for a shortage of skilled workers and will make it more difficult to hire qualified people from overseas.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, ITAA President and CEO, Phillip J Bond, said America's economy is strong and vibrant, but the country's future competitiveness rests on the ability of firms to recruit globally.
"As you know, the H-1B cap for fiscal year 2008 was reached in April, shutting out US employers from recruiting highly skilled foreign nationals, who are graduating from US institutions with degrees in computer science, engineering, mathematics and other scientific and technical fields.
"Vacancies go unfilled and highly valued workers are forced to leave the country. Even worse, significant shortages exist in the permanent resident visa (green card) programme," Bond said.
Jeff Lande, a senior vice-president at the ITAA said the industry wants more people to be able to come into the country to fill shortages.
"We also want more green cards because for many companies they want someone to come in here who can innovate for their companies, work for their companies and who can transition to permanent status," Lande told the National Public Radio.
The Information Technology Association of America said while the bill would provide an initial increase in the number of visas and establish a market based adjustment, any benefit would be seriously eroded because it does not include the additional exemptions for advanced degree holders from US institutions as the Senate previously passed.
This could result in a net decrease of available H-1B visas from one year to the next.
The group also opposes the bill because it eliminates existing "degree equivalency" provisions, thus barring the employers from obtaining H-1B workers if their formal degrees do not exactly correlate to proposed positions.
To turn up pressure on Senators, CEOs of large, mid-size and small companies, especially in most affected states such as California, Washington, Texas and Arizona, are contacting their legislators because they face difficulties in finding the talent they need.
ITAA has also criticised the proposed point system, saying it would diminish America's competitiveness by making non-immigrant visas and green cards even more difficult to obtain.
Bond explained that "among the problems with these provisions are that backlogs will increase and businesses will ultimately be forced to compete for visas with the 12 million Z applicants. Further, the point system will take away the ability of employers to hire the professionals they identify as critical to their business in a timely manner."
The ITAA president also expressed concern about "the vague and subjective enforcement standards" introduced in the proposal, as well as the new liability for subcontractors, which seems broad enough to reach any company with which any other company does business, regardless of their relationship.
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