ImmigrationU.S. technology industry working hard to shape immigration bill

The U.S. technology industry is generally happy with the Senate immigration reform bill which is currently under review, but some of provisions in the bill are not to the liking of the industry, and lobbyists working on its behalf are now trying to remove them.

The New York Times reports that the bill offers an easier green card process, expansion of the number of skilled guest worker visas, and makes it easier for employers to sponsor foreign math and science graduates from U.S. universities for permanent residency. Provisions added to the bill, however, also require employers to ensure that an “equally qualified” American is not available for a job opening before hiring a foreign temporary worker, and allows the Labor Department to regulate the process.

Another amendment would force companies to show that they have not laid-off an American worker with similar qualifications ninety days before or after hiring an foreign worker.

Silicon Valley executives say that language would prevent them from using the increase of temporary work permits currently in the draft (H-1B visas).

“The amendments are very important because they allow high-tech companies to use the visas as intended rather than creating regulations that make it so difficult they cannot practically be used,” theSilicon Valley Leadership Group, which includes IBM and Oracle, said in an e-mailed statement on Friday.

“Companies are willing to show they have tried to hire Americans, but we want to do it in a way that works with their current hiring practices and does not place a heavy administrative burden on them,” the statement continued. “The more difficult it is to get H-1B visas, the more likely that jobs will go abroad because there is no American that fits the needed skill set.”

Critics of the industry say that the tech companies’ insistence on getting their way on every issue could yet derail the bill.

How can technology companies threaten to kill the legislation “when it contains almost all they have said they wanted?” Bruce Morrison, a former chairman of the House immigration committee who now lobbies for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers told the Times. “All of America should lose the good the bill does so that they can fire Americans and replace them with H-1Bs? Ridiculous.”

 “Overall, tech has gotten, by any metric, the best bill they’ve ever seen on this issue in terms of H-1Bs,” an aide to the Judiciary Committee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Times.

The bill contains provisions which raise minimum wages for guest workers, thus making it difficult to use guest workers on temporary visas to drive down wages in the industry. Another provision makes it nearly impossible for (mostly Indian) outsourcing companies to bring temporary workers to the United States, thus increasing the share of American companies in the recruitment market.