According to John W. Steadman, president-elect of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers-USA, the unemployment rate for engineers reached a record 7 percent in the first quarter of 2003. Steadman testified in front of a Senate panel that the the H-1B program was a major contributor to this staggering level of joblessness.

Even when the economy was booming, there were Americans who claimed they had the education and background for these jobs, but had to compete against foreigners to get them. Still, the booming economy and a huge need for the technical workers seemed to justify the visas, as American companies aimed to remain productive and competitive.

H1-B visas allow foreigners to work in the United States for up to six years. They were established to do away with a shortage of skilled workers such as medical professionals, technical experts and even fashion models. Three years ago, when technology companies-mostly in the Internet and other computer-related fields-were booming, the H-1B program was expanded under pressure from the big players. Congress passed a temporary increase on the annual cap, which went from 65,000 to 195,000.

That temporary cap is about to expire, and unless Congress acts by October 1, the previous cap will go back into effect.

To many, this would seem all well and good since the number of H-1B visas has dropped 75 percent in one year, according to a report by the American Electronics Association, a trade group representing 3,000 tech firms. The number of H1-B petitions went down to 26,659 in 2002, compared with 105,692 in 2001.

According to Charity Wilson, lead analyst of equity issues at the AFL-CIO, which represents 65 unions with 13 million members, 250,000 workers were laid off in 2002, including 100,000 programmers, but companies were still filing petitions for thousands upon thousands of H1-B visas. Wilson and many others want to know why.

Technical industry representatives claim that they still need the technical skills foreigners can provide. Industry big wigs say that not enough Americans are undertaking studies in advanced sciences and math, forcing their country to hire foreign-born workers.

American technical workers are crying foul, and hope to get support from their representatives. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) recounted complaints by unemployed technical workers who tell her point blank: they were replaced by foreign-born workers willing to accept one-third the pay they had been receiving. "It's not easy to hear someone say, 'This is a program that you helped create, and I'm losing my job because of it,' " Feinstein admitted.

Stephen Yale-Loehr, an attorney who represents the American Immigration Lawyers Association, asked that lawmakers consider a new cap of 115,000 H-1B visas, while opponents are asking senators to allow the visa program to fall to the previous-65,000-annual level.

But changes in the H-1B visa program alone may not solve the problem at all.

The tech industry has turned to the L-1 visa, taking advantage of a loophole that allows them to get foreign workers in faster, and with fewer hoops to jump through.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) announced his plans to introduce legislation that would restrict the visa program and limit abuses. "American workers have been displaced, and this must stop," he told the senate.

The purpose of the L-1 visa is to allow international companies to import to America, on a temporary basis, specially-skilled employees from abroad.

But foreign companies have been setting up US offices with the specific goal of brining in thousands of low-cost tech workers, who they then contract out to US companies, pulling the employment rug right out from under American contractors.

Both foreign and US companies have realized that there is an even easier way to bring people into the US than the H-1B visa. With L-1 visas there are no caps, no explanations required about qualifications, and no proof is necessary to show that they are not displacing a US worker.

In August of 2003, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., introduced a bill for an L-1 cap, and a prevailing wage requirement so that companies would not be able to abuse foreigners or displace American workers so easily.

Lawmakers may be closing in on the abusers, but many are hesitant to restrict business and industry in any way: they are the pulse of the economy and everyone worries about strangling them financially by forcing them to do things a certain way.

What the senate plans to do remains to be seen.

© Peter and Jennifer Wipf 1999-2002.  All rights reserved. No duplication without explicit written permission.