>High-tech visas help fund scholarships, anti-fraud

>A group that backs a visa program designed to bring high-skilled foreign workers to the US reports that some of the approximately US$ 3 billion in visa fees paid by employers has gone to science and math scholarships, US worker training and anti-fraud activities. A report issued this week by the National Foundation for American Policy points to the use of fees for such programs as a reason to maintain the visa program. The foundation supports policies allowing businesses to hire foreign workers.

The money has paid for 58,000 student scholarships distributed by the National Science Foundation and for 100,000 US workers to get training through the Labor Department, says the report. Some opponents claim the visas cost Americans jobs. H-1B visas allow foreigners to work in the United States. The visas are temporary, good for up to six years and can lead to a permanent residency permit, known as a green card, if an employer sponsors the worker.

Businesses maintain they are important for bringing needed skills that cannot be found in the US and are necessary because waits for green cards, which provide legal residency, are too long. “In addition to being required to pay professionals on H-1B visas the same wage as a comparable US worker, the H1-B fees, the legal costs, the staff time and the uncertainty of the immigration process demonstrate the employers really need these individuals and they’re complementing the US workforce rather than taking jobs from US workers,” said Stuart Anderson, the foundation’s Executive Director.

The organization’s report was issued the same week a House of Representatives subcommittee plans a hearing on the H1-B visas. It is one in a series that the subcommittee has had about immigration as Republicans in the majority try to build support for tougher immigration enforcement amid the slumping US economy and continued high unemployment rates.

Other hearings have covered the need for a system that can check whether a person is working legally in the US, the Obama administration’s preference for auditing employers who hire illegal immigrants rather than conducting more expensive raids and on whether immigrants are taking jobs from American minorities.

According to Anderson’s report, businesses that use visas have paid $2.3 billion in scholarship/work training fees and more than $700 million in anti-fraud fees. They also pay visa adjudication fees, can pay fees to get the visa processed more efficiently, legal fees and costs associated with paperwork for dependent family of the worker.

H-1Bs have been criticized as allowing employers to replace American workers with cheaper employees. Thursday’s hearing was expected to include discussion of fraud problems in the H-1B program. High-tech companies have lobbied heavily for limiting restrictions on H-1B visas and increasing the numbers available.

Source: The Economic Times, March 31, 2011