2 Snaps Up to Senator Schumer

He just made the obvious point that the current H1B program does not serve the needs of the American people:

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says that the H-1B program has created "multinational temp agencies" that undercut U.S. wages and discourage students from entering tech fields.

Schumer said the H-1B program has morphed into program used to hire foreign tech workers "willing to accept less pay than their American counterparts." He spoke on the Senate floor in advance of its approval Thursday of $600 million for border security that includes an H-1B visa fee increase.

He's right, of course. The program is not about finding people who cannot be found in the US, it's about importing cheap labor.

The rise in the H-1B fees is perhaps the best part of the law, thought, of course, the foreign body shops are apoplectic about this, claiming that "The US is giving a very strong signal foreigners are not welcome."

My heart bleeds borscht for them, but they should consider themselves lucky: I would set a soft cap of something like 50K a year visas, and raise the rates when the number of applications exceed this.

As an alternative, you could go with a bidding system, with something like quarterly auctions, which would raise the cost from a $2,500 fee

The new law added $2000 for firms that have more than 50% non citizen/green card workforces, which is still too low.