h1visajobs.com thanks... 
Lorenzo Lleras,  Attorney at Law, Szabo,Zelnick&Erickson,P.C., for this news article.
(h1visajobs.com Ref#21May2000lleras)

Subj: H-1B Cap Update
Date: 5/18/00 4:38:25 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: www.usbusinessvisa.com (Szabo,Zelnick&Erickson,P.C.)
To: pkollaram@h1visajobs.com

Hello to all our readers:

We hope you have been following all the articles we have been posting in
the "News" section of our site. In response to the many inquiries about
what is happening with the H-1B proposed legislation, we are forwarding an
article that appeared in today's San Jose Mercury News. It accurately
describes what is happening.

As always, if you have any questions about immigration issues, please
contact us.

Szabo, Zelnick & Erickson, P.C.
usbusinessvisa.com
info@usbusinessvisa.com

H-1B visa issue is mired in politics
All agree on the need but can't get together on the solution
By Jim Puzzanghera
San Jose Mercury News, May 17, 2000

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton and nearly everyone in Congress agree with
Silicon Valley that there's a desperate need for significantly more
high-tech foreign workers during the next three years. But expanding the
H-1B visa program once again has become entangled in politics and
parliamentary procedure that threaten to derail fast-track approval this
spring.

The same scenario in 1998 left an expansion of the program dangling for
months until it was approved at the last minute before Congress adjourned
for the year. This time, two complications have surfaced: the need not to
offend a key Republican subcommittee chairman and attempts by Democrats to
include two controversial immigration proposals with the visa legislation.

It was all on display here Wednesday as the House Judiciary Committee
voted
largely along party lines, 18-11, to approve a bill (H.R. 4227) by Rep.
Lamar Smith, R-Texas, that would allow an unlimited number of H-1B visas
between 2001 and 2002.

While that would seem like a major improvement over the current annual cap
of 115,000 such visas, the high-tech industry dislikes Smith's bill
because
it ties the additional visas to a number of requirements that industry
executives feel would be burdensome. Among the requirements are that H-1B
workers receive at least $40,000 a year in salary and benefits and that a
company show that the median wage paid to its American workers had
increased from the previous year.

High-tech prefers a bill co-sponsored by Reps. David Dreier, R-Covina, and
Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, that would increase annual visas to 200,000
between fiscal years 2001 and 2003 but does not include any new
requirements. A bill pending in the Senate largely mirrors the
Dreier-Lofgren bill, boosting the visa cap to 195,000 from 2001 to 2003.
The Smith bill has only two Republican co-sponsors, one being Rep. Tom
Campbell, R-Campbell. The Dreier-Lofgren bill has 62 co-sponsors.

But Smith is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee's immigration
subcommittee, and Lofgren said Wednesday that his bill was approved by the
committee soley in deference to his powerful position. Lofgren was not
allowed to offer her bill for a committee vote.

``I respect Lamar Smith, I just don't agree with him,'' she said. ``The
tech leaders that I talk to . . . said they would rather have no bill than
the Smith bill.''

Smith said his proposal is the only one that is good both for the
high-tech
industry and American workers. Last week, he agreed to change his bill to
remove some additional industry requirements, such as making new visas
available only to companies that have increased hiring of Americans.

Temporary boost

In 1998, Congress temporarily boosted the number of H-1B visas to 115,000
a
year in response to pleas from Silicon Valley that it couldn't find enough
qualified workers. Demand is so high for the visas that this year all were
allocated by March, six months before the end of the fiscal year.
Compounding the problem is that under the 1998 legislation the number of
visas is supposed to drop next year to 107,500 and revert to the 1998
level
of 65,000 the following year.

That's led the high-tech industry to push hard for another temporary
increase this year. Republicans and Democrats responded with three bills
and bipartisan support for an increase, despite complaints from some
American engineers that companies prefer visa holders to U.S. workers
because they are less expensive and beholden to the firms that bring them
to this country.

Lofgren still hopes that the arcane procedures of the House of
Representatives will let her introduce her bill to the full House so it
can
prevail over Smith's bill. Dreier will have a key say in that, as he
chairs
the Rules Committee that makes such decisions. Dreier has spoken kindly of
Smith and his legislation, but has not said which bill he prefers.

``As we look to this skilled-worker issue proceeding to the House floor,
it
is critical that we continue to move forward in a spirit of bipartisanship
that avoids politicizing this top priority,'' Dreier said in a statement
after the Judiciary Committee vote.

Lofgren will create a new hurdle for her legislation when she attempts to
include two other immigration proposals. One would extend an amnesty
provision for Nicaraguans and Cubans to others in Latin America. The
other,
known as late amnesty, would allow illegal immigrants who entered the
United States before 1986 to apply to become U.S. citizens -- an extension
of a 1980s amnesty program that was given to people who had been in the
country since 1972.

The White House last week said it wanted those provisions included in an
H-1B visa bill. And the immigration amnesty plans received a boost this
week when prominent conservative Republican Jack Kemp joined with liberal
Democrat Henry Cisneros to urge Congress to approve them with the visa
legislation.

Disagreement

Dreier and Smith said those issues don't belong in the visa bill.
Democrats
are playing politics because they know those immigrations proposals
wouldn't pass Congress on their own, Smith said.

It's likely that visa legislation will not be voted on until June, because
the House is enmeshed in a contentious debate about whether to approve
China's entry into the World Trade Organization deal. That vote is
scheduled for next week. But supporters say they are still optimistic a
visa deal will be worked out.

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