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Congressman Slams 'Fraudulent' Visa Seekers in Madras

A P Kamath in Washington

The high-tech industry just cannot cope with the immigration of foreign computer programmers, especially from India.

They are demanding more programmers, claiming that there is an acute shortage of 50,000 high-tech programmers. Each person could earn over $45,000, may be about 25 per cent less than an America-educated programmer but certainly more than the average American's yearly earning.

Their hard-won battle in Congress last year to expand the controversial visa category, in which strong pleas were heard from Microsoft's Bill Gates, has still left the high-tech companies with a shortage of programmers.

The news came up just as Lamar S Smith, a conservative Republican, was warning that the H-1B program under which H-1B visas were granted for foreign high-tech workers and experts was plagued by increasing fraud and that America should concentrate on producing "more well-educated workers".

He cited an investigation into H-1B visa applications at the US consulate in Madras. According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the State Department, in 3,247 cases examined by an anti-fraud unit, investigators were unable to verify the authenticity of nearly half of the petitioners' claims of education and work experience and found an additional 22 per cent to be false.

Last week, the H-1B visa program reached its annual allotment of 115,000 foreign workers in "speciality occupations," the INS announced. It was the third year the second time visas ran out before the end of the fiscal year.

Now the industry hopes that the conservative Senator Phil Gramm could come to their help.

In a recent speech at the Dallas headquarters of Texas Instruments Inc, Gramm (Republican-Tex) called for increasing the H-1B cap permanently to 200,000 a year. He said he plans to introduce a bill to ensure that high-tech companies "can find and hire the rare people whose specialized skills are critical to America's success".

The visas are used mostly to invite computer programmers, the majority from India and China, but they also are issued to professors, engineers, doctors and fashion models.

Last week several top universities in America, including Columbia University, complained that because the high-tech industry took away most of the visas, the schools could not get experts from foreign countries.

"Visa shortage is creating a serious problem, we are not able to get adequate number of professors from abroad," said Lisa Vogel, the associate director for the Office of International Students and Scholars at New York University.

Congress raised the annual cap for H-1B visas from 65,000 last year almost doubling the previous quota, after an intensive and passionate lobbying campaign by high-tech employers. The industry argued that computer workers were in short supply and that it needed to bring in foreigners to keep the industries running smoothly.

But the Congress limited the increase in H-1B visas to a three-year period. Under the deal, the cap stays at 115,000 in 2000, then drops to 107,500 in 2001 and reverts to 65,000 thereafter.

American workers and labor groups countered that companies sought foreign programmers mainly to hold down wages in a tight labor market. They said many employers have abused the visas, producing modern indentured labor. But many foreign programmers get about $60,000 a year.

"It is quite a decent money, isn't it," asks V Raghavan. "Sure, we get less than 25 to 30 per cent of what an American who went to college in America gets. But look at this way. We are making far more money than an average American does. And many of us are in our late 20s or early 30s."

The INS announced this week that it will not accept petitions received after June 15 for first-time H-1B employment, It also said other workers whose petitions have been pending since April will have to wait until October 1 -- the start of fiscal 2000 -- before they can start their jobs.

Under the H-1B program, workers are admitted for "temporary" employment lasting up to six years. Many end up staying when employers sponsor them for permanent immigrant status.

But with the presidential election due next year, there is not much enthusiasm to expand the quota, immigrant experts believe.

Though Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Al Gore is beholden to Silicon Valley and the high-tech industries elsewhere, he cannot afford to displease the trade unions.

His spokesperson last week said the vice president "thinks our focus should be on training American workers for American jobs."

Gramm's own friend, Texan Republican Lamar Smith is opposed to the expansion of visas.

In fact, Smith, chairman of the House judiciary immigration subcommittee, is a leading proponent of more restrictive immigration policies.

In a letter to INS Commissioner Doris M Meissner, Smith said recently that testimony before his subcommittee showed "pervasive fraud in the H-1B program has had a major impact on the availability of the numerically limited visas."

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