Thursday, March 16, 2000 - More High-Tech Worker Visas Sought
By G. STEPHEN BIERMAN Jr., Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawmakers from areas growing from the influx of new high-tech companies introduced legislation Wednesday to nearly double the number of visas issued each year for tech-savvy foreign workers.Their bill would raise from 115,000 to 200,000 the ceiling on the six-year, H-1B visas the Immigration and Naturalization Services now issues annually to ``professional'' workers from overseas.
Claiming there are now 364,000 more high-tech jobs than workers to fill them, Rep. David Drier, R-Calif., said the present ceiling doesn't meet the needs of an increasingly digitalized economy.
``If we can't bring these people to the U.S., these companies are global, they'll do it somewhere else,'' said Rep. Tom Davis R-Va.
Similar bills raising the ceiling for professional visas to 195,000 and 160,000 have been been introduced by other lawmakers.
To gain the H-1B visa, a foreign-born worker needs the support of an American company willing to pay the price of the visa and the legal expenses involved in getting it.
To prevent companies from using immigrants to depress U.S. wage rates, the bill would require companies to pay H-1B workers the prevailing wages for specific jobs, as determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The measure introduced Wednesday also would raise the price of the visa from $500 to $1,000 with the proceeds to go toward paying the cost of training U.S. workers.
And it also would require the Immigration and Naturalization Service to move to a web-based tracking system to speed approval of green cards that allow immigrants to work in the United States. Critics said the agency now takes one to two years to process some admission applications.
``It's about time the INS moved into this century and used the technology that the rest of us use,'' said Rep. Zoe Lofgren D-Cal.
