H1B Visa's

[Windship]

Here is where our gov sticks it to the high tech fields. Wonder why you see so many Indian and Pakistani names? Its the H1B high tech visa's hitting the tech side hard too...and no one is talking about it. It is taking a third of the high tech wages and obama a few years back, madee it so they have been increasing at 250,000 new H1B visa's per year!!!that would be about 1.5 million so far.
NEW OBAMA ACTION COULD INCREASE PERMANENT WORK PERMITS TO FOREIGN WORKERS ABOVE CONGRESSIONALLY-APPROVED LEVELS

UPDATED:
Fri, FEB 19th 2016 @ 11:10am EST
President Obama issued a new executive action that would grant work permits to foreign workers who are in the country on temporary work visas and have applied for employment-based green cards if implemented. The action would also extend the length of work permits for foreign STEM students who participate in the Optional Training Program (OPT).

The President issued the proposed 181-page executive action just before the New Year's holiday in an attempt to avoid public pushback.

The proposed action would override current visa caps established in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1952.

The executive action would offer extensions to high-skilled foreign H-1B workers, providing more time to be approved for a permanent employment-based green card.

"Obama has gone the Full Monty to bust the immigration system," says immigration lawyer John Miano who recently co-authored the book "Sold Out" that focused on Disney's use of the H-1B program to replace American tech workers. "What is going on is he is effectively giving Green Cards to people on H-1B visas who are unable to get Green Cards due to the [annual] quotas… it could be over 100,000."

The INA states that no country may receive more than 7 percent of the total number of green cards available in a given year. The executive action would bypass the INA per-country caps for H-1B workers, essentially providing them with a fast track to U.S. citizenship.

The H-1B visas are the visas that companies like Disney and Toys R’ Us used to replace American workers. The American workers were forced to train their replacements in order to receive their severance pay.

"The objective here is to strip American workers of their protections from foreign labor embodied in the Green Card quotas, that are set by Congress, not the White House," Miano said.

The executive action would also offer a 180-day extension to any foreign student participating in the OPT program. The OPT program is often called the “mini H-1B program” since many of the students are hired on the H-1B visa once their OPT work permit expires. This extension would give more time for foreign students to stay and work in the country until issued a H-1B visa.

The new policy would also allow companies to hire these foreign student graduates at lower salaries than American graduates since they will also have the ability to receive a permanent work permit. This would create a huge competition barrier for American graduates who also seek employment and relied on the higher wages to pay off student loan debt.

This action comes after the 17-month OPT extension for STEM students is set to expire in February unless the federal courts provide DHS with a 3-month extension of the program in order to complete the process to replace the rule.

The new DHS rule will be published in the Federal Register on Thursday with a public comment period running through the end of February. At that time, DHS must respond to every comment submitted before finalizing and implementing the rule.

Read more on this story at Breitbart.com.

 

[Windship]

Our fkn politicians are systematically tearing our country down for the new world economy. Hmmm...new WORLD economy....where does sovereignty stand?

 

[Windship]

The corporations were asked and they wont pay over 40,000usd per yer wages!!! For ppl making 125+ now!!!

 

[Windship]

...and they're gonna get it too.

 

[Windship]

where are ya uncle terrie?

 

[Windship]

Obama, Tech CEOs Discuss Amnesty, More Guest-Worker Visas
40
0

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

by TONY LEE2 Mar 201552

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER
awarded work permits to certain spouses of H-1B guest-worker visa holders.

But the tech industry wants more.

High-tech leaders have spent millions of dollars lobbying lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to secure massive increases in H-1B guest-worker visas, claiming a shortage of America high-tech workers even though numerous studies have shown that there is actually a surplus. While pushing lawmakers for more guest-worker permits and claiming a shortage of American workers, some of America’s most prominent tech companies like Microsoft have been laying off thousands of American high-tech employees.

Obama himself conceded that tech executives were being deceitful when claiming a shortage of American workers.

“I’m generally skeptical when you hear employers say, ‘oh we just can’t find any Americans to do the job,’” Obama said at an immigration event in Nashville shortly after announcing his executive amnesty. “A lot of times what they really mean is that it’s a lot cheaper to potentially hire somebody who has just come here before they know better…”

But Obama has championed a comprehensive amnesty bill with guest-worker provisions the tech industry covets. Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), have co-sponsored a guest-worker bill that would increase the number of high-tech guest-worker visas. They believe a high-tech immigration bill can be a “gateway” to a more comprehensive amnesty bill, but may face some roadblocks after ComputerWorld reportedthat Southern California Edison laid of hundreds of workers in favor of foreign guest-workers who are not more skilled than the Americans who had to train their replacements.

Republican lawmakers like Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) criticized Southern California Edison’s hiring practices, with Issa calling the report “deeply disturbing.” On the left, Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) also said the H-1B program must be reformed to “stop these abuses.”

Howard University Public Policy Professor Ron Hira, who found that high-tech companies were abusing the H-1B visa program after reviewing government data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, has asked Labor Secretary Tom Perez to investigate whether Southern California Edison was violating immigration and labor laws.

According to the White House, Obama, along with White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, Jeff Zients, Director of the White House Economic Council, and Megan Smith, the White House’s Chief Technology Officer, met with:

• Ursula Burns, Chairman and CEO, Xerox Corp.; Chair of Tech CEO Council
• Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO, Dell Inc.
• Mark Durcan, CEO and Director, Micron Technology Inc.
• Steve Mollenkopf, CEO, Qualcomm Inc.
• Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President and CEO, IBM Corp.
• Joe Tucci, Chairman and CEO, EMC Corp.

Look at the look he has on his face...."hehehe...Im really gonna fuck those ass holes now"!
Just look at that!...he's fkn SMILING!!

 

[Windship]

Tech cranks up pressure on Obama for immigration order

AddThis Sharing Buttons
101

By Mario Trujillo - 11/09/14 09:00 AM EST

How Much Can Tech Execs Influence the Immigration Debate?
Bloomberg

The tech industry is dialing up the pressure on President Obama over immigration, arguing moves to free up more work visas should be among his executive actions.

TechNet, which counts many Silicon Valley companies as members, said it respected Obama’s decision to delay the immigration moves until after the election, but said the time for action has come.



"We will be engaging in this, yes, in the next couple of months," TechNet's chief executive Linda Moore said. "They know the kinds of things that we would like to see done. And we will definitely reengage on that.”


Tech lobbyists said their main focus remains an expansion of deferred action for millions of people who are in the United Sates illegally. But barring legislation, they say there are a number of steps Obama could take that would be beneficial for the economy.

FWD.us — the lobby group cofounded by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg — called on supporters this week to share their stories and contact members of Congress to urge reform.

"In addition to what the president should do to help the undocumented community — because there are millions of families who are living every day in fear of being separated — but in addition to that, we think there are things that can help spur job creation in the country," FWD.us president Todd Shulte said.

Many tech groups pitched their ideas for executive action to the White House in August, before the delay.

One idea floated by the industry would "recapture" and issue unused green card numbers that expired from previous years, potentially freeing up 200,000. Another would allow people who have been approved for a green card to apply to work even when there is a wait for their visa number.

Some advocates have pushed Obama to specify that spouses or children should not be counted against the yearly cap on employment-based green cards. The cap currently stands at 140,000, but takes into account a person's children and spouse.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who represents a district with a heavy tech presence, said the president should consider "parole" that would allow some immigrants into the country if it is determined to be in the national interest. A case could be made, Lofgren said, that entrepreneurs or cutting-edge researchers could be included in that.

"I believe that the president is going to do something that is helpful for the economy, and that includes the tech sector," Lofgren told The Hill, saying she hopes her various recommendations to Obama have been valuable.

Tech groups view some options as more attractive than others. FWD.us, for example, has supported changing the way the visa cap is tallied, but is less convinced it will be included in Obama's announcement. Similarly, Lofgren said she has not seen anything legally persuasive on changing the cap without Congress.

And any broader increase in the number of high-tech visas — known as H-1B visas — would likely have to be passed by Congress, similar to a proposal included in the Senate's comprehensive bill last year.

The debate over Obama's executive action has focused mostly on delaying deportations and granting work visas to millions of individuals who came to the country illegally — an expansion of a program started in 2012.

Republicans have warned against administrative action, with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) saying Thursday it would "poison the well” for broader reform.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has said all the immigration proposals being debated will lead to higher unemployment. His office warned that the tech companies are just looking for cheaper labor.

“The executive actions FWD.us is lobbying for — work permits for illegal immigrants and the importation of more foreign guest workers for IT corporations — will ensure the following for American workers: higher unemployment and lower wages,” Sessions spokesman Stephen Miller said.

Obama has vowed to act on immigration by the end of the year. He has also recently hinted at policy changes aimed at the technology community.

At a town hall in October, Obama said, barring congressional action, he would "use all the executive authority that I legally have in order to make fixes in some of the system, and that includes potentially making the H-1B system that is often used by tech companies" more efficient.

Advocates have continued to call for broader legislative action as well.

"We are hopeful that the president will use his executive order to help our economy by including meaningful reform of the high-skilled visa crisis," said Scott Corley, executive director of Compete America, which represents a number tech giants, including Microsoft, Intel, Amazon, Google, IBM, Facebook and many more.

 

[Windship]

Obama doubles down on tech-immigrant abuse
By Kenric Ward / November 20, 2014 / News / 60 Comments







AP file photo

T-SHIRT FOR HIRE: President Obama displays a T-shirt he received from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.


By Kenric Ward | Watchdog.org

Expanding a controversial visa program as part of immigration reform, the Obama administration has already rewarded participating businesses that underpay and “handcuff” foreign-born workers.

Technology companies are taking advantage of the H1B visa program by flouting the definition of the legally required wage, says Norm Matloff, professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis.

“Firms use the visas to acquire cheap labor, saving about 20 percent in an apples-to-apples comparison — young foreign workers versus young Americans — and as much as 50 percent for hiring young H1B visa holders instead of older Americans,” Matloff said.

A National Research Council report, commissioned by Congress, confirmed that underpayment of technology visa holders was an industrywide practice.

Sign-up for our Technology Watchdog email list to receive the latest news and in-depth coverage.


In a recent notorious case, one Silicon Valley firm admitted paying eight migrant programmers $1.21 an hour, working them for more than 120 hours a week.

“U.S. companies also abuse the green-card process, which renders a foreign worker immobile for the several years during which the green-card approval is pending,” Matloff said. “The employer doesn’t want engineers leaving for a competitor during an urgent project.”

In a practice called “handcuffing,” the migrant worker is prevented from moving around to find the best salary. It’s perfectly legal under the H1B laws.

At the urging of technology companies, Obama plans to double the number of H1B visas as part of his immigration-reform package.




AP file photo

BRING MORE: California Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown says the current cap on H1B visas is crippling Silicon Valley.



Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others tech giants contend they cannot find sufficient numbers of homegrown programmers. California Gov. Jerry Brown has echoed those complaints and wants H1B caps lifted.

Matloff said he doesn’t buy the argument, and asserts that issuing more H1Bs will only turn the screws tighter on U.S. workers.

“Wages are flat. There is no shortage (of workers),” Matloff told Watchdog.org.

The Center for Investigative Reporting found that Washington – under Republican and Democratic administrations — is complicit in high-tech wage-shaving schemes that smack of indentured servitude.

“The federal government has awarded contracts and other benefits worth nearly half a billion dollars since 2000 to technology labor brokers and tech firms cited for violating (H1B) laws,” the CIR report stated.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense were among agencies that have looked past these violations or did not check the record.

“If taxpayers knew about this, they would be apoplectic,” said Leslie Paige, vice president of policy and communications for Citizens Against Government Waste.

Now Obama is opening the floodgates.

“The president is prepared to increase the current 65,000 H1B visas handed out per year to more than 155,000 (foreign nationals) if they are studying for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) degrees. Emerging details also glean that tech majors will be eligible for citizenship, including their spouses,” according to news reports previewing Thursday night’s announcement.

Such proposals have been rejected by Congress.

“All that needs to be done is set a realistic value of the prevailing wage. Proposals have been made to define it at the 75th percentile of wages in the given occupation,” Matloff said, countering Obama and the tech companies.

“This would reflect the employers’ claims that the H1Bs either have rare skill sets or are extraordinarily talented. Then the number of H1Bs would plummet.

“We would never come even close to filling the (H1B) quotas,” he predicted. “Of course, this is a nonstarter politically.”

David North, a policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the AFL-CIO could help break the stalemate between Obama and the GOP-controlled Congress.

“It strikes me as a perfect opportunity for the union leadership to break out of their slumber and win one for their cause,” North told Watchdog.org.

“If the organizing were initially concentrated on IT people working on government contracts, it would give the organizers extra leverage to bring about better wages and working conditions for the H1Bs involved,” he said.

“Such a movement would make employers less enthusiastic about H1B, and perhaps lessen the pressures to expand the program, which would have the pleasant side effect of opening some jobs for U.S. workers, and raising wages for everyone in this prosperous industry.”

Kenric Ward is a national reporter for Watchdog.org and chief of its Virginia Bureau. Contact him at (571) 319-9824. @Kenricward

Kenric Ward

Kenric Ward is a veteran journalist who has worked on three Pulitzer Prize-winning newspapers. A California native, he received a BA from UCLA (Political Science/Phi Beta Kappa) and holds an MBA. He reported and edited at the San Jose Mercury News and the Las Vegas Sun before joining Watchdog.org in 2012 as Virginia Bureau Chief.

 

[Windship]

I know...its a lot...if you dont know much about this...just read.

 

[Windship]

President Obama's planned immigration reform executive order will not increase the number of high-tech immigration visas but will allow spouses of those visa holders to work in the U.S., a right previously denied to them under current policy, according to sources who were briefed on announcement Thursday.

The new policy will finalize a rulemaking already underway by the Department of Homeland Security, effectively allowing an estimated 400,000 legal immigrants to seek work. Obama will announce the finalization Thursday night, the sources said.

Under current law, the H-1B visa program allows in an estimated 140,000 workers in "specialty occupations" annually. Their spouses are allowed to come to the U.S. under the separate H-4 visa program and are forbidden from seeking employment. Because of that, they do not count against the number of high-tech visas a company gets under current law.

A majority of the spouses have high-tech degrees also, immigration policy experts say — many met and married while in school — and so are expected to also seek work in the industry under Obama's rules change.

Stay abreast of the latest developments from nation's capital and beyond with curated News Alerts from the Washington Examiner news desk and delivered to your inbox.

Thus, while the policy change will not increase the total number of high-tech visas allowed, which is set by Congress, it will likely significantly expand the number of those workers allowed into the country. The spouses will not count as using H-1B visas.

Another change to the regulations would be to allow visas awarded to high-tech workers to not be tied to a specific employer, a situation that results in the immigrants becoming "indentured servants," according to critics of current policy. Instead, the visa will become portable for the holder, allowing him or her to move from job to job.

Apart from the potential increase in legal high-tech workers, business groups are likely to be disappointed by Obama's executive order. "There were a lot of small changes that business was asking for, but apparently nothing huge," a source who was brief on the policy said.

One measure that business had requested was a "recapturing" of employment-based green cards, essentially allowing immigrants to use visas that were available in previous years but not used due bureaucratic delays.

"There are at least 300,000 unused numbers from previous years," said Charles Kuck, a Georgia immigration lawyer who was not briefed on the rule.



A source said the president will urge the Department of Homeland Security to pursue a rulemaking on the issue.

The sources cautioned that the information was based on verbal briefings. The White House has apparently not provided any documents to interested groups, fearing the details will leak too early.