GOP Sen. Mike Lee is defending his S.386 green-card giveaway bill by arguing that it will not increase the number of H-1B visas for foreign temporary workers.
“In light of the fake news going around regarding S.386 I wanted to provide the facts and set the record straight,” Lee said in a tweet announcing his statement.
“I 100% agree with the White House that the H-1B program should not be used to displace or replace American workers,” said in his October 2 statement. He continued:
S. 386 is … ‘number neutral’, meaning it does not increase the number of visas, H-1B or otherwise in anyway, and under no circumstances will it become a vehicle for increasing overall immigration levels. What it does do is end the discriminatory current policy that punishes green card applicants from large countries.
Lee’s statement is correct that his bill does not increase the number of H-1B visas, and it does not increase overall immigration levels. But none of the people who are organizing opposition against the bill make those claims.
Instead, Lee’s statement hides the reality that his bill offers many more green cards to many more Indian graduates if they use other visa programs to take many more jobs from American graduates. Already, U.S.-based companies have filled U.S. college-graduate jobs with at least 600,000 Indian graduates – including roughly 500,000 Indian H-1B visa-workers.
Lee’s statement also hides the expected harm to other non-Indian people who want to win green cards. That harm has prompted Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin to put a temporary hold on Lee’s bill. Without that hold, Lee’s bill is expected to pass the GOP-run Senate via the fast-track “Unanimous Consent” progress.
The lopsided nature of Lee’s bill is sketched by the responses to his tweeted statement. Those responses consist of applause by Indian visa-workers in the United States and jeers by American voters who are watching their careers and jobs transferred to the growing number of imported Indians.
“S386 is unfair, said a response from “John” at @gstreetj. “I lost my job due to the fact that I was the only non Indian in the department I worked in. My family settled in Utah in the 1850s and there are lots of them and they vote. Please listen to Americans and not big business trying to save money.”
“You are a sellout,” said one tweet by “@advisingtrump2.” It continued, “We don’t need more foreign workers and the importation of cheap labor. We need our graduates to have jobs waiting for them. we need to invest in the education of our kids. Work visas should end all together but your bill is a disgrace.”
“Thank you Senator for clarifying this,” said a response from Venkata Nidamanuri at @VenkataNidaman2. “@FoxNews please read and understand the truth and need for S386 .”
“This is why education is important !,” said a tweet from Amar Devikar, at @amardevikar. “Illiterates will always oppose”.
The opposition also included tweets from non-Indian graduates who will likely lose their place in the green-card line if Lee’s bill is passed.
Lee’s bill rewards Indians by removing the “country caps” that put a roughly 20,000 per year cap on the award of green cards to Indians. Under Lee’s bill, Indians could get all of the 120,000 green cards distributed each year by employers via the EB-1, EB-2, and EB-2 green card programs.
Moreover, an unlimited number of Indians can compete to win those green cards by working long hours at low wages for employers in the United States.
Federal law allows an unlimited number of Indians to get jobs in the United States via the B1 and L-1 visa for foreign workers, as well as the uncapped “Optional Practical Training” and “Curricular Practical Training” work-permit programs for foreign students and graduates at U.S. colleges.
The no-limits B1, L-1, OPT, and CPT workers programs create a pipeline of cheap workers into the H-1B program, which provides employers with 85,000 foreign workers per year. H-1B workers can stay for six years, and employers can extend their stay indefinitely by nominating them for huge valuable prize of green cards.
The pipeline now includes at least 600,000 Indians working on H-1B, L-1 or B1 visas, or on OPT, CPT or H4EAD work permits.
But this India-to-green-cards pipeline is now clogged by at least 300,000 Indians — and roughly 300,000 family members — who cannot reach the exit of the pipeline by converting their H-1B visas into green cards
The Indians are stuck because federal law limits the Indians’ share of all green cards to roughly 20,000 per year.
Many of the 300,000 Indians — and their family members — are lobbying for Lee’s fast-track fix for their exit problem. Some companies also want to unclog the pipeline.
The clogged pipeline is bad for some U.S. and Indian employers because it slows their recruitment of new Indians for jobs in the United States. While the pipeline is clogged, the companies cannot offer fast-track green cards to the Indians who might be willing to work for several years at low wages in U.S-based software sweatshops.
But Lee’s bill will unclog the exit of the pipeline by allowing Indians with H-1B visas to get up to 120,000 green cards per year.
This expansion would allow investors and companies in the U.S.-India Outsourcing Economy to offer fast-track green cards to recruit many more Indian low-wage graduates for jobs via the OPT, CPT, B1, and L-1 programs.
Lee’s bill would be bad for American graduates because it would allow investors and companies to flood their job market. The floor of Indian graduates would drive down salaries in a wide variety of careers in software, engineering, accounting, healthcare, business or recruiting.
Despite the good economy, many American technology experts and other graduates have difficulty getting good jobs with good pay.
WAMV.com spotlighted a long line of Americans seeking jobs September 17 at a new Amazon office in Nashville, Tennessee:
One local veteran said he’s ready for whatever Amazon has to offer.
“In my career, I’ve worked as an enterprise level networking engineer, systems engineer and a senior level project manager. Speaking with the different divisions here today, they have quite a few opportunities available to me and have given me a great deal of optimism in applying,” said Dennis Cary.
Cary is hoping to transition from working part time to full time with the tech giant.
Since, Amazon has asked for thousands of H-1B visas and has hired many OPT workers.
The rush of more Indian graduates would also make it more difficult for Americans to get hired or get promoted by the growing number of Indian managers in U.S. workplaces.
The bill is also bad for other companies, for some states, and for many universities who want to bring in foreign graduates from other parts of the world, including South America.
If Lee’s bill passes, the U.S.-India Outsourcing Economy will fill up the OPT-to-H-1B-to-green-card pipeline with Indians, so blocking Florida companies from quickly importing South American graduates, fashion companies from importing European designers, and universities from importing Chinese graduates.
Unsurprisingly, Indian officials are promoting these Lee’s bill — and its House version, HR>1044 — because they are working with U.S. investors to grow the U.S.-India Outsourcing Economy.
“I must compliment the U.S. House of Representatives for adopting the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants bill which removes country caps on the H1B visas,” Indian ambassador Harsh Shringla told a June meeting of lobbyists and advocates on Tuesday. “We have worked with congressmen across the board, and we’re happy this is a bipartisan initiative in Congress, and we’re hopeful the Senate would follow course and also adopt the bill.”
Shringla also touted the supply of Indian workers using the OPT and CPT programs. “Indian students are an important part of the, let’s say, [trade] engagement,” Indian ambassador Harsh Shringla told a D.C. meeting of lobbyists and advocates in July.
There are over 200,000 Indian students studying in the United States … If you are able to use the expertise of some of these people, highly trained and educated in the United States, for short-term employment, I think you would have a very useful source of professionals to maintain the competitiveness of U.S. high-tech industries … at very, very, very competitive … rates.
U.S. investors are pushing the outsourcing bill because they want more Indians to get into the pipeline so they can take joke jobs in the United States.
Most of the Indian workers are being imported to run the U.S. side of the U.S.-India Outsourcing Economy, which is used by investors to transfer Americans’ salaries into their Wall Street stock values.
For example, Walmart is boosting its stock value by outsourcing 569 finance and accounting jobs in North Carolina to cheaper H-1B workers from India. If the company saves $10,000 per employee, Walmart will save $5.7 million per year. On Wall Street, Walmart’s price to earnings rate is 25 to one, so the $5.7 million in payroll savings will boost its stockholders’ value by $142 million.
Walmart picked an American company, Genpact, to supply the Indian workers. The company is a spin-off of General Electric, and it prospers by providing Indian H-1B workers to many companies in the United States. For example, the company asked for 271 H-1Bs in 2018, 410 H-1Bs in 2017, and 307 H-1Bs in 2016. In 2018, Genpact also got 160 L-1 visas which allow Indian employees to work in the United States at Indian-level wages.
Genpact’s H-1Bs work on the U.S. side of the vast and growing U.S.-India Outsourcing Economy, now worth roughly $78 billion per year. Part of the H-1Bs’ job is to funnel additional work back into India. For example, Genpact may only need to use 100 H-1Bs and 20 L-1s in North Carolina to help steer the work of the 569 fired American finance experts back to large teams of low-wage Indian graduates in India.
Genpact’s $3.3 billion in revenue is enough to generate $7.5 billion in stock value for its investors, which include Bain Capital, Blackrock, and Charles Schwab Investment Management.
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