Speech by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) in the House of Representatives. Re: Opposition to H1B visa bills, and PNTR status for China. Date: March 15, 2000. Source: Congressional Record, page H1055. See, Tech Law Journal summary of bills pertaining to visas for high tech workers.

Mr. Speaker, just a few comments on some of the things that we have heard over these last few 5-minute Special Orders. I hope the American people who were listening understand what H-1B Visas are all about. We had several Members come down to the well and talk in glorious terms how important H-1B Visas are and about how we are going to give jobs, 200,000 jobs, to people who are the first string picks from overseas.

No, I am sorry, I would like to have 200,000 Americans have those jobs. H-1B Visas is nothing more than a reneging on the promise to the American worker that, when supply and demand means that their wages will go up, that we will, instead, import people from overseas to keep their wages down.

We do not need to import people into this country for high-tech jobs. We need to make sure our high-tech industries, which are making a whopping profit right now, spend that profit in training Americans for those jobs rather than giving them to 200,000 Pakistanis or Indians or others who will work for $25,000 a year and taking those jobs away from Americans who would be earning $75,000 a year. So H-1B visas are no gift to the American people.

I hope those people listening to the arguments that were just presented understand who is getting ripped off and who is being attacked here and who is being rewarded. Big business is being rewarded so they can keep their wages low, and the American worker is getting shafted with these H-1B visas.

Now, as far as human rights, which is something that we heard about today, and the President's visit to the subcontinent, let me just say that this administration has the worst human rights record of any administration in the history of this country. And it will be underscored again when the President visits the subcontinent and also underscored, of course, by the President's ongoing policy towards China.

First, let us look at China. The President is now lobbying this body to provide China with permanent WTO status, meaning a membership in the WTO and giving it permanent normal trade relations with the United States of America. Again, a shafting of the American working people in order to grovel before a dictatorship that uses slave labor overseas.

Yet Beijing, while the President is lobbying us, saying, oh, this will make the Chinese better and a nicer regime, more hospitable to human rights and democracy, they are in the midst of a campaign designed to eradicate a small religious sect based on yoga and meditation, the Falun Gong sect. They are also in the midst of threats and bluster and arming themselves to the teeth in order to commit forceful action against the little democracy on Taiwan. This, the world's worst human rights abuser and belligerent country is now, what, the country that this President wants us to give permanent normal trade relations to, to make them part of the WTO. Again, an undermining of democracy.

When the President goes to the subcontinent, yes, there are a lot of issues to be had. It was a wrong decision on the President's part to visit Pakistan when we had just had a military clique overthrowing a democratic government in Pakistan. That in itself is a horrible message around the world to democracies that are struggling and in societies where the military might be inclined to take over that government. So at least the President should skip Pakistan until they have made a commitment to return to democratic government. Yet that will not happen.

And when he goes to India, the President will not, I am sure, mention the problem in Kashmir. Because although my colleagues in the well a few minutes ago ignored that issue, the Indian government is involved with massive human rights abuses in Kashmir. The problem is not terrorism in Kashmir; the problem is the fact that India will not permit the people of Kashmir to have a plebiscite, which was mandated by the United Nations 40 years ago, and give them an alternative to solve their problem through the ballot box as to what country they would like to be part of. Instead, India controls Kashmir with an iron fist.

So we have a President ignoring human rights and democracy, visiting Southeast Asia, undermining the very fundamentals that will make this world a better place. It will not be a better place by ignoring Communist Chinese violations of human rights and democracy. It will not be a better place if the President goes to South Asia and ignores the military takeover of a democratic government in Pakistan. And it will not be a better place when the President goes to India and ignores the human rights violations in Kashmir.