Special Visa Law May Have Backfired for Tech Firms

The state’s technology companies may be getting short shrift in the race to hire coveted high-tech specialists from other nations under a special visa allocation program signed into law last year.

Processing delays at the California Service Center of the Immigration and Naturalization Service have put H-1B visa approvals two to six weeks behind similar approvals at the agency’s service centers in Nebraska, Texas and Vermont, according to the INS. Industry sources describe California delays as far longer, however, raising concerns that other regions will gain a larger share of the 115,000 jobs allowed under the program for 1999.

“It was taking three and four months for INS to process the applications,” said Heidi Wilson, immigration program manager for Palo Alto-based Sun Microsystems. She blamed both the INS and problems with computer systems at the Labor Department, which is also involved in H-1B applications.

“In some situations, our managers have shied away from extremely desirable candidates because they had to wait so long,” Wilson said. Complaints to the INS have often gone unanswered, she added.

The H-1B program, a top legislative priority for the high-tech industry last year, was designed to ease what industry sources describe as a severe shortage of qualified engineers and computer programmers. Companies in Silicon Valley--which combines the nation’s highest concentration of high-tech jobs with one of the lowest unemployment rates--pushed hard for its approval.

The program was opposed by labor advocates, among others, who argued that the industry uses foreign workers as a cheap alternative to retraining American citizens or employing U.S. technologists who command higher salaries.

“INS is aware of the discrepancy in H-1B processing times among our four service centers,” and is developing procedures “to equalize and maintain processing times . . . to ensure a fair process for all H-1B applicants,” according to an agency statement.

By the end of February, nearly 81,000 H-1B visas had been approved, but the INS did not know how the approvals were apportioned by region, according to an agency spokeswoman.