Speech #1140085684

Senator is to protect American workers. If that adversely affects the profits of a foreign company that specializes in outsourcing American jobs. so be it. In 2013 I joined the Gang of 8Democrats and Republicansand we put together a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Corporate interests fought hard to protect these HlB visas. but we successfully included several important changes to the program in the bill. Let me give an example. Under current law. employers are permitted to pay HlB visa holders substandard wages. which creates an incentive to fire Americans and hire foreign workers. The vice president of Tata. out of India. one of the leading foreign outsourcing firms. candidly acknowledged they use HlB visas to undercut American workers. Here is what he said: Our wage per employee is 2025 percent lesser than U.S. wage for a similar employee. ... The issue is that of getting workers in the U.S. on wages far lower than local wage. He was pretty candid about it. The object is to put Americans out of work and to charge less than what the Americans are being paid. So I wrote a provision in the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill that discouraged employers from hiring foreign workers as a source of cheap labor by doubling the minimum wage of HlB employees. and employers of large numbers of H1B visa holders would be required to pay. at a minimum. the average wage paid to an American. That is why the chief executive of Tata in India said our bill would have been "very tough" on outsourcing companies. So be it.