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The H-1B Visa program of today is a perversion of its original charter. In no way shape or form did congress or any political body ever design the program as it exists in its present form. That hasn’t stopped big business from milking it, but nonetheless it does not serve the good people of this here United States of America.

Karl Kiefer compiled a fantastic article on the history of the H-1B program on NumbersUSA.com. In 1952 the program was designed to provide a temporary arrangement for high tech professionals to come to the U.S. and share their expertise. It was never designed to be a path to citizenship or even a residency program. Fast forward to today and you’ve got a wholesale immigration program that stands on its own with the almighty green card as the begin and end all for their efforts.

Throw some gasoline on the fire in the form of the Immigration Reform Bill and you have a perverted H-1B program that goes mongoloidal. According to the IEEE, in addition to raising the absolute minimum cap of visas from 65,000 to 115,0000, the bill is loaded with loopholes to provide even more working visas,

• Exempting graduate students from the cap, resulting in around 30,000 more visas
• Allowing spouses of H-1B workers to work, resulting in approximately 20,000 more STEM workers
• Creating a “market-based” escalator that allows the base cap to quickly rise to 300,000 visas each year.
• Maintaining the uncapped exemption for non-profits and research institutions, including universities, resulting in approximately 85,000 visas annually.

Taken together, these changes will authorize between 400,000 and 450,000 H-1B visas each year.  For perspective, the U.S. economy averaged 56,000 new STEM jobs annually over the past decade.  How are we going to fit all of these H-1B Visa people into our economy and why the heck do we want to encumber ourselves with the problem in the first place?

The labor force’s only real leverage is to contact their people in congress and let them know that their ass is grass if they allow it to happen. Fortunately, there is a fantastic organization by the name of NumbersUSA.org that will do all of the work for you. They will type up the first draft of the letter and let you edit it to your hearts content. Then, with your permission, they will fax it for you for free. Best of all, it is all done online and done automatically!

So, you can click a few buttons and do your part to prevent it from happening NOW . . . or you can spend the rest of your life as a ‘disenfranchised professional’ hauling trash to the dumpster at WhatABurger. Think about it. : -)

John Coffey is the President of JobTabs, LLC.  Through JobTabs Job Search & Resume Builder, thousands of job seekers have taken control of their destiny in finding new and fulfilling careers. JobTabs Job Search & Resume Builder motivates job seekers by making the job search easier by a huge order of magnitude.  John Coffey can be reached via his website at JobTabs Job Search & Resume Builder, by email via jpcoffey at jobtabs.com, and by phone at 404-255-0248.

If the Immigration Reform Bill passes in its present form, you can say goodbye to 180,000 high paying, blue chip jobs that would otherwise go to Americans. To be fair, only 110,000 jobs will be flushed down the tube in the first year. Given that the number of H-1B visas issued can increase at the rate of 10,000 per year up to 180,000 – depending on demand – 180,000 jobs flushed down the tube is assured.  See, the allotment for all of the H-1B visas for this year was filled in just five days.

For the uninitiated, the H-1B program is a federal program to allow foreign workers, typically Indians and Pakistanis, with college degrees to work in the U.S. The program is focused on bringing in graduates with backgrounds in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, aka STEM employees. At present, the program is only authorized to allow 65,000 STEM employees a year to work in the U.S., however the Immigration Reform Bill being put forth in congress is angling to have the limit lifted to 110,000 and then gradually to 180,000 by the year 2020.

That the U.S. Congress s allowing foreigners to flood the market because, supposedly, there aren’t enough Americans to do the work is an affront to its own citizens and only serves to circumvent the problem instead of solving it. While I firmly believe that there are enough qualified workers in the U.S. to do the job, let’s say for the sake of the argument that there are not. Well, what has this country done with every other supply/demand schism that we have ever faced? We let the price go up or down as the market dictated! Therefore, if we don’t have enough highly skilled workers to do the job why don’t the employers offer more money to fill the void? Wouldn’t this prompt more people to get training and pursue degrees in STEM fields in light of the higher salaries?  The answer is yes.  However, it costs corporations less to import foreigners to do the job at a lower wage.

The U.S. could easily solve this “shortage of STEM workers” by letting the free market run its course. If qualified STEM employees are making $100K two years out of college, what do you think incoming freshmen are going to choose to major in? STEM subjects of course! The purported shortage of STEM workers would be filled in the blink of an eye. In keeping with basic demand/supply theory, the salary for STEM employees would actually begin to decrease as more and more home grown students graduated into the market place. This is a simple solution to a simple problem. Why bring in all of these foreigners, pass all of this legislation, and hire all of these government employees to manage the program when we can just let the market run its course? Because the corporations would have to pay American workers fair market value for bringing their skills to them and that is something they have no interest in doing.

You can do something about it. It is easy as can be. Go to NumbersUSA.com and they will contact your congressman on your behalf  Let your senators and representative from your district know that you are adamantly opposed to the Immigration Reform Bill. You will vote for the congressman who opposes it and you will vote against the congressman who endorses it in the next election. We encourage you to use the resources availed by NumbersUSA.com to do all of this for you. NumbersUSA.com will provide the online fax service for you to fax your letter to your congressman for free! They will even help you type it up! Please do not join the docile and lazy people ‘sheeple’ that the corporations so desperately want you to be. Do not succumb to inaction. Go to NumbersUSA.com, click some buttons, and let the your congressman know that you are there to reign down holy hell if they allow this Immigration Reform Bill to be passed!

John Coffey is the President of JobTabs, LLC.  Through JobTabs Job Search & Resume Builder, thousands of job seekers have taken control of their destiny in finding new and fulfilling careers. JobTabs Job Search & Resume Builder motivates job seekers by making the job search easier by a huge order of magnitude.  John Coffey can be reached via his website at JobTabs Job Search & Resume Builder, by email via jpcoffey at jobtabs.com, and by phone at 404-255-0248.