Abandon hope in Silicon Valley

This wasn't supposed to happen here

[Reprinted from Issues & Views March 24, 2003]

From the demands of immigration advocates to the capitulation by government officials and the apparent lack of public interest in reforming lax immigration policies, it seems clear that Americans are ready to accept the final overturning of immigration laws.

When there are no longer any distinctions between legal and illegal alien, when lower school tuition fees are promoted for illegals, while native-born Americans pay higher fees, and when the insidious H-1B visa, a device concocted specifically to undercut American workers, is vigorously defended and even expanded, one wonders what to expect next. Some voices are still raised in protest in efforts to stave off what appears to be inevitable.

On the VDARE website, computer engineer Richard Armstrong describes how the H-1B visa is directly affecting his livelihood. Initially, U.S. employers requested this special visa program, to import high-tech workers, claiming there was a national shortage of such personnel. In 1998, this claim was shot down by University of California Professor Norm Matloff, who proved that there never was a shortage of computer technicians. His study still holds up today. Armstrong writes:

I have 18 years of experience in the computer industry, and have always kept my skills current with industry trends and technology. My client recently told me that even though I was doing a fantastic job, I had to lower my contracting rate significantly, or face losing my job because there were plenty of H-1B programmers who would take my job for less money. I had to take this significant cut in pay and hold onto this current contract because there is too much artificial competition from H-1B aliens in the computer industry. This contract ends in two months, and I expect that I will be on the street for quite some time, and might have to change careers and leave the computer industry.

My son is 16 years old, and has been working with computers since he was 5 years old. He already holds industry certification as an Internet computer programmer, and builds websites for his school and other organizations. He is proficient in two computer-programming languages, and has a 4.0 average in high school. He wants to follow in his dad's footsteps, and attend college to pursue a software engineering degree. . . .

The H-1B program has already closed the doors for me, and I am facing a potential career change. I just don't know if this problem will go away in the next 5 years, because H-1B aliens can stay for 6 years, and the government is importing 195,000 H-1B aliens annually for the next 3 years.

In 1993, TV's "60 Minutes" produced a segment describing how American companies were breaking immigration laws, in order to pay lower salaries to computer technicians from India. The host, Lesley Stahl, revealed the nature of "body shops," whose owners did the actual importing of workers, placed them in prominent corporations, and paid them salaries considerably lower than their American counterparts. Stahl called these workers "cut-rate, foreign programmers," whose labor was sold on a temporary basis, as they moved from one company to the next. During the show, Stahl interviewed a former immigration official, Demetrious Papademetriou, who candidly claimed: "These are basically run-of-the-mill people with a degree and some skills, and it seems to me that it is important that we distinguish between people who are truly skilled--who have unique, specialized skills--and people who simply provide labor."

By 2003, however, the "60 Minutes" producers had seen the politically correct light. In January, the H-1B story was again told, but this time with no references to the dispossessed American worker. Instead, the show's emphasis was on the value of Indian labor. Joe Guzzardi, writing for VDARE, claims that Americans should "abandon all hope" of working in Silicon Valley and, in this second "60 Minutes" show, an Indian frankly tells why. Guzzardi writes:

Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and I.I.T. graduate (Indian Institute of Technology) made this observation: "If you are a WASP walking in for a job, you wouldn't have as much pre-assigned credibility as you do if you're an engineer from I.I.T."

And, stop the presses! We are blessed that so many of those doors are right here in the U.S! More than two-thirds of I.I.T. graduates migrate to America--most of them on H-1B visas.

The 60 Minutes segment represents the first cannon shot in what looms as a bitter battle over H-1B visa legislation set for October. . . . The industry is lobbying for an increase in the 195,000 level established in 2000; weary, displaced American software workers who want their jobs back want the total to revert to its original 65,000--or less. . . .

So the stage is set for a tough fight: the money grubbers who must argue that they need more imported workers--even though Silicon Valley has laid off hundreds of thousands of workers--against disgusted Americans who want less immigration across the board.

The stage is also set for a lawsuit. On March 17, Walter Kruz, a former employee of Sun Microsystems, Inc., filed suit in the state Superior Court of Santa Clara, Calif., for which class action is being sought. Kruz charges that the mammoth high-tech firm is biased toward hiring people from India. The company's directors have purposely laid off American workers in order to replace them with lower-paid foreign workers. At a time when Sun laid off--in reality, fired--2,500 employees, it applied to bring in 2,400 foreign workers to fill technical positions.

Further, the suit alleges, the company created a "performance evaluation" program that was specifically designed to favor its Indian employees. Longer term employees, namely Americans, were subjected to this evaluation, which could be used to fire them, while recently hired workers were exempt. This system ensured that H-1B visa holders could not be classified as "underperformers."

Kruz's attorney, James Caputo, says he plans to sue on behalf of hundreds of fired Sun workers. The suit seeks unspecified damages and a jury trial.

Copyright © 2010 Issues & Views