More Visas Needed for IT Workers from India
by Venkatesh GaneshHindustan Times, May 6, 2007
Link to article
“Indian software industry body Nasscom has pressed for an increase in the quota of H-1B visas for India.
In a presentation before US Indian Business Alliance (USIBA), an independent business alliance between US and Indian business, and Congressman John Conyers, the group called for increased lobbying in this context.
H-1B visas are non-immigrant visas that are granted to ‘specialty occupations’ including technology, biotech and other knowledge-oriented sectors. The number of H-1B visas granted by the US was drastically reduced from 195,000 to 65,000 in 2004.
Both US and Indian companies have repeatedly stressed the need to raise the cap.
In the meeting held in Washington DC, Conyers, who chaired, urged USIBA and Nasscom to testify at upcoming hearings of a Congressinal panel looking into the issue of immigration, on H-1B visas and green card-related matters. …”
Click on link to article to read entire story.
Tags: 1b_visas, congressman_john_conyers, immigrant_visas, indian_software_industry, IT-oursourcing
May 8th, 2007 at 6:57 am
There are a large number of qualified and perfectly employable Americans who would love to have the jobs. How can these “people” (a k a, corporations and politicians) say that the H-1Bs are not taking away our jobs? The fact is that our jobs have already been taken away, and industry wants to replace us with cheap — really cheap — labor from overseas.
As a progressive, I am ashamed that John Connyers is involved is this criminal ruse. How many more politicians are selling us out by paying homage to large corporations in return for financing their campaigns?
I have heard of American IT professionals who have moved to India, with its low cost of living, to work.
Is this justice? Or just irony?
This is one mechanism that is forcing American workers into a lower standard of living. “High-cost” Americans are laid off; then corporations complain that they do not have enough “qualified” IT workers. The only qualifications they are looking for are low wages and lack of regulation.
Do you want to live like the Indians, or Mexicans or Russians? Or, do you want government to represent the interests of the majority of the American voters? If it’s the latter, what are you doing about it?
We can start by learning how each of the current crop of politicians and candidates stands on the issue of replacing American work with imported work.
We can tackle the problem of “corporate personhood” by which large corporations have co-opted the American electoral system and the halls of Congress. Corporations are not people, and they do not have freedom of speech. We need to rectify this sickness.
May 9th, 2007 at 7:52 am
Across America, our young adults, who are keenly perceptive and often more realistic than is commonly understood, are rejecting technical career prep because they don’t see a future in it. They hear Bill Gates and others yammer about how they should move toward technology careers, even as plans are publicized to triple the size of offshore operations. The short-term profit gain from this is very far outweighed by the long-term structural damage to our economy and, ultimately to ourselves. It seems like only a few years ago, Indians, Chinese and others flocked to America to find their technological futures. That American young people are either shunning it, or going the other way, is their message, loud and clear, to anyone paying attention, that our criminal shortsightedness and neglect of their interest has relegated us to the past and to a position of inability to offer them anything worthy of their further consideration.