Tech firms would skirt hiring restrictions under deal
By Fredreka S chouten, US A TODAY
3:38 p.m. EDT May 21, 2013
WASHINGTON – Many U.S. technology firms would not have to first offer jobs to American workers before
hiring foreign guest workers for programming and other high-skilled positions, under a deal crafted by Sens.
Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
The measure, aggressively sought by the technology industry, could come up for a vote Tuesday afternoon
as the Senate Judiciary Committee races to complete its work on the nation's biggest immigration overhaul in
decades. Schumer is one of the eight senators who crafted the leading Senate immigration bill. Both he and
(Photo: Jacquelyn Martin, AP)
Hatch serve on the Judiciary panel, and the deal could secure Hatch's support for the overall bill.
To address the concerns of groups representing American workers, the immigration bill has required any company using H-1B visas to first advertise
job openings on a government website for 30 days and extend offers to Americans before hiring a visa holder. The bill also would give the Labor
Department the power to audit and challenge companies' hiring decisions for up to two years after they are made, Tech companies consider those
provisions onerous and launched a lobbying campaign to strip them from the bill.
Under the Hatch-Schumer deal, the strictest hiring requirements, including Labor Department review, would apply only to companies that rely on H-1B
visas for more than 15% of their full-time workers with college and advanced degrees. Hardest hit by that requirement: big outsourcing firms that deploy
mostly foreign workers – mainly from India – as consultants at U.S. companies. But many U.S.-based tech companies would escape additional Labor
Department scrutiny.
The deal also eases rules that would have required a U.S. company to show they had not laid off an American worker within three months of hiring a
visa holder from overseas.
Under the compromise, companies hiring foreign workers specifically in science, technology, engineering and math fields could meet the requirement
by simply stating in writing that they do not have the "intent" to replace American workers.
Hatch, a technology industry ally, has proposed more than half a dozen changes to the immigration bill to address the industry's concerns.
In what proponents say would be additional protections for workers, the deal would make it easier for visa holders to change companies once their
employers have applied for green cards on their behalf. Under the current system, H-1B holders are tied to their employers. As they wait for permanent
residency, they can't change jobs without losing their position in the long line for green cards.
The agreement is another sign of the technology industry's growing political muscle in Washington. Tech firms already had secured a dramatic increase
in the number of H-1B visas in the underlying bill, arguing that they cannot find qualified American workers for high-skilled positions.
Eleven technology trade associations sent a joint letter to the Senate on Tuesday afternoon, supporting the agreement.
The deal will "will allow U.S. technology companies to remain competitive as the world's leader in innovation through access to the high-skilled
engineers and scientists they so desperately need," said Dan Turrentine of TechNet, one of the trade groups backing the compromise. "This will help to
both create and sustain jobs in the U.S. and continue to grow our economy."
The compromises were announced Tuesday over the objection of the AFL-CIO, which had stepped up its criticism of the Hatch amendments this week.
In an email to immigration activists, officials with the labor federation said the Republican's measures would "undercut protections for both aspiring
citizens and U.S. workers."
The so-called Gang of Eight bill in the Senate hinges, in part, of compromises reached by the labor federation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Tuesday, AFL-CIO spokesman Jeff Hauser said the organization "is not part of any deal to accept the H-1B compromise amendments, and we remain
opposed to the Hatch amendments."
Contributing: Alan Gomez