The Real Debate Is Not About H-1B

By Rep. Lamar Smith
Roll Call Newspaper
July 10, 2000

Congress is spending a lot of time this year debating whether to admit more skilled foreign workers when the solution to our work force needs really lies elsewhere.

Temporary high-tech visas account for 100,000 foreign workers each year. Legal immigration averages close to 1 million entrants annually. One-third - about three times as many people as are admitted on high-tech visas - lack even a high school diploma. Yet 90 percent of all future jobs will require more than a high school education.

Legal immigration reform that increases the percentage of legal immigrants who have at least a high school education will take time but is necessary if our immigration policy is to strengthen our national work force. For now, we must settle for a short-term fix - importing foreign workers.

The high-tech industry accounts for almost a third of the productivity growth in today's economy. When Congress can help sustain a strong economy, it should act. But we should beware of unintended consequences. When seeking benefits for the U.S. economy, we have an obligation also to consider harm to American workers.

The House Judiciary Committee has approved legislation that will boost the economy without harming American workers. The Technology Worker Temporary Relief Act would set no caps on the number of high-tech visas available for three years. The market would determine how many are needed.

However, there is no objective survey that demonstrates a shortage of American computer programmers, engineers and other high-tech workers. A government study being conducted will not be available until the end of the year.

The only data we do have is Immigration and Naturalization Service statistics that show the demand for these visas has increased by 50,000 in the past year. But demand, in the absence of other evidence, can mean many things: a spot shortage, a preference for cheap labor or something else.

Given the importance of the high-tech industry to our economy, Congress should give the industry the benefit of the doubt.

It is essential, though, that Congress balance the interests of the high-tech industry with the interests of American workers. According to one poll, 82 percent of Americans opposed increasing the number of foreign high-tech workers. If we are going to give the high-tech industry the benefit of more foreign workers, we must also include provisions that preserve opportunities for American workers. The Judiciary Committee legislation contains a wage floor for high-tech workers based on the typical salary that recent American college computer science graduates receive for their first job in the industry - $40,000 per year.

Companies applying for these visas would have to show that they are increasing the median salary for their workers - another provision to prevent an employer from importing cheap foreign labor to undercut the wages of American programmers and engineers.

The Judiciary bill also requires employers of temporary visa holders to submit to a public Web site basic information on every high-tech worker they employ, including title and job description and salary and benefits - most of which is part of the public record now, but is inaccessible.

This is necessary because the INS cannot tell us how many temporary foreign workers are currently employed in the United States. We know little about their real wages or how they are actually used in the work force. Are they hired to replace Americans? Do they serve as a cheap source of labor? Americans have a right to know.

The Technology Worker Temporary Relief Act also addresses fraud. During a hearing last year, the Judiciary subcommittee on immigration and claims, which I chair, discovered that these visas are used by "front companies" established solely to submit bogus applications for visas to get family members or others into the United States fraudulently.

This undermines public support for foreign workers and legal immigration. So the legislation requires companies that have assets of less than $250,000 to document their business activity. That prevents companies that exist only on paper from misusing high-tech visas while also providing avenues for firms, both large and small, to easily qualify for temporary foreign workers.

It also requires all temporary foreign workers to have a college degree. The immigration subcommittee heard testimony about foreign high-tech workers or their overseas agents writing résumés with work experience in lieu of a degree that were good fiction. If America needs high-tech workers, our policy should make sure we get qualified high-tech workers.

And finally, the legislation directs the Clinton administration to implement important provisions from the 1998 high-tech worker bill that have been stalled. It is reasonable to ask employers to attest that they are seeking foreign workers only after they have tried to recruit qualified American workers and to attest that they're not using foreign workers to replace Americans.

It's the law. And the administration owes it to American workers to enforce it. None of the other bills contains these proposals or anything like them. Nor have they met the test of full consideration by the committee process that is designed to improve legislation. No other bill attempts to strike a balance between the needs of the high-tech industry and the concerns of American workers.

The House should move the Judiciary Committee bill, address the needs of the high-tech industry for high-skilled workers, preserve future opportunities for American college graduates and workers - and then come back in the next Congress to act on legal immigration reform. The Judiciary legislation is not the industry bill to increase the number of high-tech workers. But it does meet the demand for more foreign workers.

It is difficult to see how the industry can complain about being allowed to import as many high-tech workers as they need as long as this does not hurt American workers. In the end, this is legislation that the industry can embrace because it helps them and American workers.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee on immigration and claims.

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