Speech #1140085684

Madam President. I rise to speak about HlB visas. often called the highskilled immigration visa. Every year. the U.S. Government issues 85.000 new HlB visas. including 20.000 for workers with advanced degrees. This is in addition to hundreds of thousands of foreign workers already in the United States on HlB visas. Beginning on April 1. employers can submit petitions for new HlB visas. Every year. within a few days. the government announces that it has received many more petitions for visas than the number of visas available. The government then conducts a random lottery to decide which employers will receive the visas. Every year this leads to a hue and cry from our business community about the need to increase the annual cap for HlB visas. Like clockwork. this process played out last week. just as it does every year. Lets take a look at what happened. When most people think of HlB visas. they think of big tech companies like Microsoft. Google. and Apple hiring topnotch computer engineers. paying them top dollar to come in from overseas. But here is the reality. In fact. the top recipients of HlB visas are foreign companies that use loopholes in the law to displace qualified American workers and send American jobs offshore. In 2013. outsourcing firms received more than 50 percent of the annual HlB visa cap. Think about that. Over half of these HlB visas. designed to bring skilled foreign workers into the United States. are being given to foreign outsourcing companies. It sounds wrong. doesnt it? In 2014. 15 of the top 20 HlB employers used the HlB visa primarily to offshore American jobs. that is. to take Americans. put them out of work. and have foreign workers take their jobs. These 15 firms gobbled up over 190.000 new HlB visas over 10 years. This is how it works. Foreign outsourcing companies import thousands of foreign guest workers using HlB visas. These companies then cut deals with American companies to outsource American jobs and to move them offshore. The United States keeps them in the United States but with these foreign workers.