Prospects Fading for More H-1B Visas

WASHINGTON — With little time left in the Congressional calendar, high tech companies are scrambling to get an increase in H-1B visas this year, but the prospects are fading.

"Time is short and it is a bit of a long shot, but the urgency of our situation necessitates us continuing to walk the halls of Congress, " said Robert Hoffman, a vice president for government and public affairs at Oracle and co-chair of Compete America, a coalition of high-tech companies that includes Microsoft Corp. and Google, Inc. "As long as they continue to talk to us, we have reason to be hopeful."

Hoffman said he is in discussions with House leaders and other key lawmakers, hoping to attach an H-1B amendment to a larger measure. But the task is difficult because Congress is facing a heavy agenda in the final weeks of the year, including 11 "must-pass" spending bills to fund various government agencies.

U.S. businesses say the H-1B visas, which allow well-educated foreigners to work in the United States for up to six years, are vital to the nation's economy and ability to compete in a global market. Currently, they say, thousands of talented foreign citizens educated at U.S. universities are sent away, shipping future leaders and innovators to other countries.

Jeff Lande, senior vice president of the Information Technology Association of America, which represents more than 300 companies, said that obtaining more H-1B visas is his highest priority and that "there's certainly a chance" that it will happen.

Lawmakers who strongly support expanding this category also said there is still hope for legislation.

"There's always a chance," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "It makes no sense to educate foreign students at our flagship universities in critical skills and training areas and then to send them away ... and have them compete with us from their native lands."

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said she is working on a measure to increase the cap, but that the vehicle was uncertain as of Tuesday. She said there is still "a slight chance" for an increase.

The number of H-1B visas allowed by law has fluctuated in recent years in response to the U.S. economy and the highs and lows of the technology industry, and is now set by Congress at 65,000. In addition, 20,000 more foreign citizens with advanced degrees from American universities are allowed to stay and work in the United States.

This year, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services returned thousands of petitions for H-1B visas after receiving more than 133,000 applications in two days.

Critics say, however, that the H-1B program depresses wages for American workers and has many flaws, including limited enforcement mechanisms.

Legislation designed to protect American workers from being displaced by foreign H-1B employees has also stalled in Congress. The measure by Sens. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, would prohibit businesses from hiring H-1B workers who are then outsourced to other companies and would give the Department of Labor more authority to conduct employer investigations.

Durbin said it is unlikely that an H-1B increase would pass this year. "I doubt it. We're running out of time," he said.

Ted Ruthizer, chairman of the Business Immigration Group at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, a New York law firm, said it would be "disastrous" for Congress to leave the H-1B cap at 65,000, the same limit as in 1990.

"This ought to be a no-brainer," he said. "Having a number that was set almost 20 years ago for the H-1B quota is just an insanity given how the economy has grown."

Ruthizer, who teaches at Columbia Law School, also said that lawmakers are responding to election-related political pressure to be tough on immigration.

"Nobody gets any extra votes by being pro-immigants," he said.

Several immigration-related provisions have failed in Congress this year, including a broad package backed by the White House. That measure would have increased border security, given many illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, and created a large temporary worker program. It also included an increase in H-1B visas. Critics decried the overall measure as an amnesty for lawbreakers.

On the Web:

Compete America: www.competeamerica.org

Information Technology Association of America: www.itaa.org