Visas for foreign labor: Down and probed

by Rebecca Cole

A deep recession and surging unemployment have tamped down the usual frenzied rush of companies filing temporary visa requests to hire skilled foreign workers, with an expired and now extended government deadline leaving room for more applications.

Immigration officials will continue to accept H1-B visa petitions until the limit is reached, they said today, which could take until the new fiscal year starts Oct. 1.

In years past, an annual cap of 85,000 visas -- including 20,000 slots for immigrants holding master's degrees or higher training from American universities -- was met within days of the application period opening. In 2008, immigration authorities received more than 160,000 petitions from firms such as Microsoft and Intel, among others, seeking to hire foreign-born experts in science, engineering and technology.

But when this year's five-day application window closed on Tuesday, only about half of the applications designated to fill the 65,000 general slots had been received, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson said, and the agency is "just short" of reaching the cap on visa requests for those holding advanced U.S. degrees.

At the same time, some lawmakers see the nation's soaring unemployment rate as an opportunity to leverage a hospitable climate in Congress for curbing visa fraud and enacting "Buy American"-type protectionist measures to ensure that U.S. companies fill openings with American workers first.

Foreign companies seeking to place workers in American jobs were the big winners during the past few years, with Indian technology companies Infosys, Wipro and Satyam netting 9,154 spots among them for the 2008 fiscal year, according to Citizen and Immigration Services. By comparison, Microsoft was awarded 1,037 H1-B visas and Intel just 351.

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said in an online posting last week that the company planned to file "substantially fewer H-1B applications" due to the economic downturn. In January, Microsoft announced it would lay off 5,000 workers, nearly 5 percent of its workforce.

The company plans to create "several thousand" jobs in new growth areas, and the vast majority of hires will be U.S. workers, Smith wrote. But, he added, "to succeed and continue adding jobs in the highly competitive global technology business, Microsoft and other U.S. companies must be able to hire top talent wherever it is located."

Smith, alluding to a dearth of native-born U.S. computer science and engineering graduates, said their numbers have "not kept pace with the expansion of key technology-related jobs."

Wary of companies using the visas for other than their intended purpose of hiring immigrants to fill temporary worker shortages, Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have for years sponsored legislation to curb H1-B fraud. Their last bill died in committee in 2007, but the senators plan to introduce similar legislation after Congress returns from its Spring recess later this month, a Grassley spokesperson said.

Industry experts worry that tightening the visa program will make it more difficult for American companies to recruit the talent they need.

"We don't want to make the system so burdensome that, once we've educated them here, the best and brightest are told to go home," said Ralph Hellman, senior vice president of government relations for the Information Technology Industry Council. "They will go back to India or China and work for the competitors of America's leading technology companies."

A Justice Department indictment in February against a New Jersey firm, Vision Systems Corp., for an H1-B visa scam in six states is stirring sentiment for lawmakers to take action.

The same month, Congress added an amendment to President Barack Obama's economic stimulus act to clamp down on immigrant hiring at banks and other financial companies that received funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

The measure stipulates that TARP-supported companies cannot displace an employed American worker with an immigrant within three months before or after applying for H1-B status, companies must try in good faith to recruit a U.S. worker for the position and they must offer the job to any U.S. worker equally or better qualified.

"Protectionism, cutting research and development, and sending all the smart people home isn't the smartest way to keep America's leading edge," Hellman said. "We think sanity will prevail and that ultimately lawmakers and the Obama administration will work to not send the best and brightest away."