Abraham holds hearing to
rally support to raise H-1B cap

The Oct. 22, 1999 San Francisco Chronicle reported on hearings by Sen. Spencer Abraham and the Senate immigration panel he chairs.

One committee member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), said she thought more needs to be done to train American workers for highly prized high-tech jobs:

`I have been besieged by CEOs from high-tech companies year after year,'' Feinstein said, citing statistics to demonstrate that she understands the vital role high-tech plays in the California economy. ``I've heard, firsthand, CEOs saying we can't find educated Californians who can do these jobs.''

But unless American workers are better educated, she added, ``what we're going to have in California is an increasing division between those who have and those who have not.''

Michigan Republican Spencer Abraham called the Senate immigration subcommittee
hearing to rally support for lifting the current 115,000 per year ceiling on H-1B visas.
Even though the cap was nearly doubled just last year, it was reached in June.

The industry has complained vociferously that an explosive demand for skilled workers, a shortage of U.S. science and computer graduates, and visa backlogs from previous years are creating a critical labor shortage that threatens to strangle high-tech's growth.

Several bills to raise the limit have been introduced. Yet despite a full-court press in both parties to please the high-tech industry, the visa issue is divisive, splitting off pro-labor factions among Democrats and anti-immigration factions among Republicans.

Texas Republican Lamar Smith, who chairs the House immigration subcommittee, strongly opposes further H-1B increases, and is not about to move such a bill in the few weeks left before Congress adjourns. Instead, Smith has highlighted visa fraud and the recent admission by the Immigration and Naturalization service that it mistakenly granted anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 extra H-1B visas this year.

Yesterday, Senator Edward Kennedy, D- Mass., also signaled his potential opposition, rattling off a survey showing high-tech industry salaries in the $40,000 range.

``There's not one graduate of Harvard Law School who starts off making less than $100,000,'' Kennedy said, calling the comparatively low salaries in high-tech ``surprising,'' given the industry's complaints of shortages.

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