Opening Statement by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). Re: House Immigration Subcommittee mark up of HR 4227 IH. Date: April 12, 2000. Source: House Immigration Subcommittee. This page was created by scanning a paper copy, and converting to HTML. See, TLJ summary of bills pertaining to visas for high tech workers.

Statement of Lamar Smith
Markup of H.R. 4227, the "Technology Worker
Temporary Relief Act"
House Judiciary Committee
Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims

April 12, 2000

The Technology Worker Temporary Relief Act eliminates the cap on H-1B visas in 2000, 2001, and 2002. The bill also sets forth requirements that must be met before an employer has access to visas above the level provided for in current law.

One prerequisite is that final regulations implementing all provisions of the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998 must be in effect. While that law's extra visas became immediately available, its worker protections have never been implemented because the executive branch has never issued final regulations.

It is fundamentally unfair to American workers to ask them to accept another large increase in H-1B workers when provisions designed to benefit them have been ignored. And it would be irresponsible for Congress to ignore the executive branch's failure to implement Congress' 1998 mandate to preserve opportunities for American workers.

Employers also should be required to demonstrate that they have increased the number of their American employees and the compensation paid to their American employees.

The high-tech companies that are calling for more H-1Bs visas are growing at a fast rate. These companies need additional H-1B aliens to keep up these growth rates and to continue to provide new opportunities for American workers. The H-1B visa increase is intended to benefit these companies.

Also, H-1B visas will only be available to aliens who are paid at least $40,000 a year (unless working at universities). High-tech companies need H- I B visas to employ highly skilled and educated aliens. In a market economy higher skills are rewarded with higher pay.

We must also deal with fraud. A hearing the Subcommittee held in 1999 provided evidence that the H-1B program is susceptible to massive fraud -- of visas being used by "front companies" set up for the sole purpose of applying for visas and of companies submitting bogus job experience letters and educational diplomas for applicants.

The bill combats fraud with a number of provisions. First, companies filing H-1B petitions that do not have assets of $250,000 must provide documentation of their business activity. Numerous H-1B petitions are filed by questionable companies that have few, if any, assets. These are often "front" companies set up solely to apply for H-1B visas or are marginal companies whose level of business activity is clearly insufficient to pay the required salary to an H-1B alien.

Requiring additional documentation for companies that cannot meet a minimum asset requirement will ensure that H-1B visas do not go to fraudulent companies or those that cannot hope to meet the requirements of the H-1B program.

Second, allowing aliens to substitute work experience for a degree is eliminated. Current provisions encourage overstated and specious claims as to work experience. Assuring that H-1B professionals have college degrees will assure that only well qualified professionals come here to work. The alien of extraordinary skills who does not have a college education can still come on an "O" visa.

Third, when an alien applies for an H-1B visa based on a degree from an educational institution outside of the United States, it must be verified by a consular office located in the country where the degree was granted.

The H-1B program is vulnerable to fraudulent claims of foreign degrees -- counterfeit diplomas from real and fictitious foreign universities and diplomas from institutions not meeting the standards of an American college education.

Fourth, H-1B petitioners must pay an additional fee of $100. The funds will be earmarked for anti-fraud work and split evenly between the INS and the State Department. The anti-fraud fee will provide more funding for field investigations and joint inter-agency anti-fraud projects. It would also provide funding to pay for deportations of aliens who were admitted to the country based on a fraudulent H-1B application.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill and benefit both American high-tech companies and American high-tech workers.