House Lifts Visa Cap for High-Tech Workers

In a major victory for the nation’s high-technology industry, the House on Thursday approved a measure aimed at bringing as many as 142,500 additional skilled foreign workers into the United States over the next three years.

The 288-133 vote came after lawmakers reached a compromise with the White House, which had threatened a presidential veto of the legislation if it did not include adequate job protections and educational training for U.S. workers.

Under a previous agreement, the compromise measure--which lifts the current cap on temporary visas for foreign engineers and other skilled high-tech workers--will likely be voted on in the Senate in the next few days. Its passage is expected.

To its supporters, the bill is seen as a critical step to reinforce an industry segment that has powered the U.S. economic recovery this decade and has solidified the nation’s dominance as the world’s technology leader.

The measure also spotlights the expanding role immigrants play in America’s high-tech industry, particularly in California, where more than one-third of the engineers in Silicon Valley are foreign-born, according to a study by the Cato Institute, a Washington-based libertarian think tank.

“The fundamental concept behind this bill is that skilled people create jobs and power innovation--they don’t take up jobs,’ Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) said during Thursday’s House debate.

High-tech executives had been pushing for the bill’s passage since early this year, arguing that it was desperately needed to alleviate labor shortages in their burgeoning industry.

But the measure was bitterly opposed as both unneeded and unfair to American workers by a coalition of anti-immigration Republicans, groups representing U.S. engineers and pro-labor Democrats.

“Claims of high-tech worker shortages are inflated,” said John Reinert, president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers-USA, the American arm of the international trade group for science and technology professionals.

Reinert added that many of his members fear companies might replace them with overseas workers brought in on work permits--known as H1-B visas--to fill temporary jobs that do not include lucrative benefits paid to U.S. workers.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) was among those critical of the visa measure, saying that it amounts to accommodating a “powerful big business interest trying to secure cheap foreign labor.”

But the bill’s advocates contended that such arguments are undercut by amendments added to it as part of negotiations with the administration.

Currently, no more than 65,000 H1-B visas may be issued annually. The visas allow companies that can prove that they need workers with certain skills Americans cannot provide to hire immigrants for these jobs for up to six years.

Under the new proposal, the number of H1-B visas would nearly double to 115,000 in the next two years, then drop slightly to 107,500 in 2001--a total of 142,500 new workers over three years. It would return to its current level, 65,000, in 2002.

Of the top 100 companies using H1-Bs to import workers this year, 18 are in California. They recruited a total of 1,039 employees, according to government statistics.

The battle over the visa cap intensified last May when the Immigration and Naturalization Service reported that the allotted 65,000 visas for 1998 had been used up. High-tech executives warned of dire consequences for their companies without an expansion of the cap, noting that an analysis by the U.S. Department of Labor estimated that in the next decade, 130,000 new jobs would open up annually in the industry.

The Senate quickly passed a bill lifting the cap but objections raised by the White House stalled further legislative action. To gain passage and placate the critics, the House bill places greater restrictions on employers who depend on the H1-B program for 15% or more of their work force.

These employers now must pledge that they will not lay off U.S. workers in similar job slots during a period beginning three months before and ending 90 days after the date the employer files a visa petition for a foreign worker. The employer must also pledge that he is unable to find a comparably qualified U.S. citizen for the job.

In addition, the compromise bill requires companies to pay foreign workers the prevailing U.S. wage, which was redefined to include salary and fringe benefits.

The bill would double the financial contributions high-tech companies make to a special fund set aside to provide job training for U.S. workers and money they give for scholarship assistance to American students studying math, computer science or engineering.

Labor leaders said they are not much impressed with compromises won by the White House. But key labor organizations paved the way for passage by choosing to stay on the sidelines rather than continue fighting the bill.

“There was a very bad piece of legislation and the administration, to [its] credit, stepped in to negotiate a better bill. But they didn’t make enough of an improvement for us to support the bill wholeheartedly,” said Peggy Taylor, legislative director of the AFL-CIO. But, Taylor added, the labor group “chose not to oppose the legislation.”

Most major high-tech companies hire hundreds of H1-B workers, but very few come close to the definition of being “H1-B dependent,” that is, depending on these immigrant employees for 15% of their work force. As a result, Microsoft Corp., Sun Micrososytems Inc. and other industry heavyweights would not be affected by many of the law’s requirements.

Most of California’s 52-member House delegation supported the bill, but the opposition crossed party lines. Among Republicans, those voting no: Elton Gallegly (Simi Valley), Stephen Horn (Long Beach), Duncan Hunter (El Cajon), Frank Riggs (Windsor), Rohrabacher and Edward R. Royce (Fullerton). Among Democrats, those voting no: George E. Brown Jr. (San Bernardino), Gary A. Condit (Ceres), Bob Filner (San Diego), Barbara Lee (Oakland), Matthew G. Martinez (Monterey Park), Juanita Millender-McDonald (Carson), Lucille Roybal-Allard (Los Angeles), Brad Sherman (Sherman Oaks) and Pete Stark (Hayward).

Not voting were Democrats Loretta Sanchez (Garden Grove), Esteban Edward Torres (Pico Rivera) and Maxine Waters (Los Angeles).

Times staff writer Greg Miller in Los Angeles contributed to this story.