Importing the Best and the Brightest?

by Ed Sawicki
Accelerated Learning Center
Tailored Computers

May 3, 2007

On March 7, 2007 Bill Gates testified before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions at their Strengthening American Competitiveness for the 21st Century hearing. I watch on C-SPAN. You can watch or listen to the hearing here.

Unlike most Senate committee hearings, Gates was the only person called to testify. I guess the committee didn't want other views geting in the way or insulting their star witness. All the Senators on the committee treated Gates like a rock star and congratulated him on his success and his company's innovations. No mention was made of his company being convicted of illegal, anti-competitive business practices seven years earlier.

Those who know me will not be surprised that I disagreed with much of what Gates said. However, if you're an American citizen and you earn a living by working in the technology sector, chances are good that you'll disagree with him as well on the issue of immigration. During his testimony, Gates advocated the elimination of caps on H-1B visas. Gates wants unlimited immigration for H-1B applicants.

H-1B visas used to be a program that allowed U.S. companies to hire foreign nationals who were at the top of their field and had advanced degrees or skills. This is not what the program is today. Today, H-1B is a way to import cheap (and in many cases unskilled) labor. The H-1B Pay Drags Down All Salaries article by David Roman discusses this.

Recently, an Oracle spokesman said that if the H-1B cap is not lifted or expanded, Oracle will have to outsource jobs off shore. This sounds like blackmail to me. My reaction is to suggest that companies that use Oracle products consider switching to another product. The Open Source PostgreSQL database has many of the features that Oracle's product has and can be used for the vast majority of database applications. Since PostgreSQL is free, companies can use the thousands of dollars of savings to pay their U.S. workers.

About 10 minutes of research on the Web reveals a great deal of alarming information on this subject. A Computerworld article on the subject links Gates with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff (shown below). While working for Gates in 1999, Abramoff successfully secured an increase in the H-1B cap from 85,000 to 195,000 visas.

Here's a snippet of the Computerworld article that should pique your interest:

In 2001, the H-1B cap was set at 195,000 visas per year. A recession forced thousands of engineers out of work while H-1B visa holders enjoyed a six-year employment guarantee. To cut costs, companies mercilessly laid off thousands of American engineers while retaining their H-1B engineers.

You can read the Computerworld article here: http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/5136

It's not about hiring the best and the brightest. It's about cutting labor costs. The Democrat and Republican Senators on this committee don't appear to be looking out for the best interest of American IT workers. If you doubt this, watch this April 2007 CNN video report:


If you're unfamiliar with H-1B Visas you can get up to speed with this Wikipedia page.

Back