Speech #1100145921

Those are my remarks in regard to two amendments that are going to be voted upon tomorrow. Tomorrow my friend. the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. Senator GREGG. is going to offer an amendment or maybe has offered the amendment already to expand the HlB visa program. I have nothing against the H1B visa program. In fact. I value it as a legal channel for U.S. companies to bring in workers they need. That is under the assumption that we dont have workers in the United States to fill those slots. But I have to say. increasing the H1B visa cap. which is the proposal. if we do that without reform. will only hurt U.S. taxpayers and American workers. The solution to increasing our global position in science and technology is. obviously. from the ground up. investing in American workers. We must strengthen educational opportunities for our American students. particularly in the areas of math and science. Such an investment will help reduce the trend in which 60 percent of the students in our U.S. STEM doctoral programs are foreign born. According to recent statistics released by the Department of Homeland Security. foreign outsourcers top the list of companies bringing foreign workers to the United States under the HlB program. In fact. it is this overwhelming6 of the top 10 visa recipients in 2007 are based in the country of India. Senator DURBIN and I made the same point about the visa approvals during debate in the year 2006. We found that the top 9 foreignbased companies in 2006 used nearly 20.000 of the total availability of H1B visas. and there is a cap on the number of HlB visas. It seems to me that that 20.000 is close to a third of all. They are used by nine foreignbased companies. You would think. of the thousands and thousands of companies we have in America. that you would not have HlBs clustered to such a great extent around nine companies and nine foreignbased companies. We heard today that Microsoft. in testimony before the House of Representatives. wants an unlimited supply of HlB visas. However. that companys visa approvals declined in 2007 from 2006. In 2006. Microsoft was approved for 3.117 HlB visas. In 2007. it dropped from third to fifth place and only approved 959 visas compared to over 3.000 visas the year before. This very day. as I have indicated. Bill Gates said that Microsoft was "unable to obtain H1B visas for onethird of the highly qualified foreignborn job candidates that it wanted to hire." It makes me question. then. why visa approvals decreased very dramatically for Microsoft. from 3.000 in 2006. down to 900 plus in 2007. I think the statistics are very clear. Thousands of visas are going to foreignbased companies. leaving U.S. companies such as Microsoft scrambling for qualified workers. How can one explain the fact that most HlB visas are going to companies based outside the United States? Do you think that increasing the cap. then. increasing the cap we have in current law. would actually benefit Microsoft and other companies? Answering these questions should lead one to the conclusion that the H1B visa program is not working as originally Intended. We need reform. even in conjunction with increasing the numbers. I am not opposed to increasing the numbers if they need to be increased. But it wont do any good if we dont have reform. and not just the socalled reform. then. of increasing the visa supply. as proposed by the hightech industry. Reforms are needed so that U.S. businesses. both large and small. can find. recruit. and hire the workers they need. One of the major reforms needed to protect American workers Is to require employers to make goodfaith efforts to recruit U.S. citizens before hiring an HlB visa holder. Only a small group of employers have to make this goodfaith effort. We need to require all users of the visa program to first recruit Americans for these highly skilled. highpaying jobs. or at least attempt to find if American workers are available. because Americans should come first. Another reform needed is to increase the investigative power of the Department of Labor over this program. The program is full of bad actors.