RodISHI
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- Nov 29, 2008
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Banks Sought Foreign Workers As System CrashedMajor U.S. banks sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country for high-paying jobs even as the system was melting down last year and Americans were getting laid off, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.
The dozen banks now receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for positions that included senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists.
The average annual salary for those jobs was $90,721, nearly twice the median income for all American households.
As the economic collapse worsened last yearwith huge numbers of bank employees laid off the numbers of visas sought by the dozen banks in AP's analysis increased by nearly one-third, from 3,258 in the 2007 budget year to 4,163 in fiscal 2008.............
During the last three months of 2008, the largest banks that received taxpayer loans announced more than 100,000 layoffs. The number of foreign workers included among those laid off is unknown. Foreigners are attractive hires because companies have found ways to pay them less than American workers.
The use of visa workers by ailing banks angers Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. "In this time of very, very high unemployment ... and considering the help these banks are getting from the taxpayers, they're playing the American taxpayer for a sucker," Grassley said in a telephone interview with AP.
Grassley, with Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., is pushing for legislation to make employers recruit American workers first, along with other changes to the visa program......The rest of the article.....
Tell your Congressman to give Support for the "Employ American Workers Act."
F....Forbes......
View from DC: Grassley ripped on foreign worker amendment
2/16/2009
By Jane Norman
..................In a coincidence, U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker in Iowa on Thursday announced the arrests and indictments of 11 people in six states, including Iowa, as part of an investigation into H-1B visa fraud. The government is alleging that an information technology company, Visions Systems Group Inc., which has an office in Coon Rapids, Iowa, told the government that high-tech workers from overseas would have jobs in Iowa. Whitaker said the government alleges the workers actually were in offices on the coasts, where wages are higher, and they dislocated U.S. workers by undercutting their pay.
Aides to Grassley said the arrests demonstrate exactly the abuse the senator has been criticizing.
Reverberations from the Grassley-Sanders amendment reached all the way to India, where opinions were divided as to whether it would have much impact on the many professionals who want visas. It's not clear how much hiring is going to be done anyway by struggling banks involved in the bailout.
At home, the language was tougher. Forbes staff writer Megha Bahree in a commentary called the amendment a "witch hunt" and wrote that when foreign workers are sent packing, they will take their entrepreneurial ideas and energy to other countries. U.S. News and World Report worried over the idea as well.