H-1B bill would stop use of visa for third party consultants

As reported in InfoWorld last Friday, Representative Gabrielle Giffords,[D-Arizona], introduced an immigration bill,[HR 5630]The Innovation Employment Act that would raise the cap on H-1B visas from 65,000 to 130,000 next year, and set aside the cap completely for foreign graduate students attending U.S. colleges studying science, technology and other related fields.

The bill, if it became law, would increase the cap to 180,000 from 2010 to 2015.

“Section 214(g)(1)(A)(vii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1184(g)(1)(A)(vii)) is amended to read as follows:

‘(vii) 130,000 in fiscal year 2008 and each succeeding fiscal year, except that in fiscal years 2010 through 2015, if such limitation is reached in the previous fiscal year, such limitation shall equal the greater of 180,000 and the limitation applicable for the previous fiscal year increased by 20 percent; or’.”

Okay that’s the bad new, however, there is some good news as well.

The bill would put a stop to the practice by outsource providers of bringing in foreign workers on the H-1B visa and then using them as third party consultants. In other words they must be employed directly by a company that is not a consultancy.

It would also stop the practice of training them here and then sending them back to their home country to complete the work.

The bill states that you cannout use individuals on an H-1B visa for third party consulting.

This practice flies in the face of why the H-1B visa was created, says Bob Meltzer, CEO of VisaNow, a company that specializes in immigration issues for its clients.

Meltzer says the point of the H-1B visa was and is to support U.S. businesses. Unfortunately, Meltzer believes because 80 percent of the top ten firms that receive H-1B visas are Indian firms this does not support U.S. businesses.

According to BusinessWeek, data from the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services [USCIS]–I was unable to find this data for 2007 at the USCIS site–shows that Infosys Technologies and Wipro were the top two beneficiaries of H-1B visas.

Meltzer says that even though there is a lottery system, these companies typically flood the immigration service with so many visa requests that by the law of averages they come out on top.

Infosys has 4,559 approved visas and Wipro 2,567 approved visas.

Further stats from USCIS, says BusinessWeek, indicate six of the top 10 recipients in 07 were based in India and the other two, seven and eight, are headquartered here but have most of their operations in India. The other two are Cognizant Technology solutions and UST Global.

The top U.S. companies that employ H-1Bs are Microsoft and Intel, with 959 visa petition approvals and Intel with 369.

Meltzer’s says that by sending H-1B visa recipients back to their home country to complete the work after training here the intention of H-1B is being short circuited and by extension the U.S. is actually losing U.S. high tech jobs.

Another part of the Giffords bill says that if you have 50 or more employees no more than half can be from the H-1B visa pool.

“(I) If the employer employs not less than 50 employees in the United States, not more than 50 percent of such employees are H-1B nonimmigrants.’.”

Now while some may think the bad outweighs and good, let me just say this is a bill that is not even out of committee yet. It most likely will be modified and modified again and again until it comes to a final vote, that is if it gets out of committee.

The bill has no co-sponsors, not a good sign I would think for its future. So who knows the good bits of the bill may resurface in yet another immigration bill while some of the unacceptable items, such as the large cap increase, may be modified down.

I’ll keep you posted.