Dear Senator Abraham:

Thank you, Senator, for your reply dated April 30th to my letter of April 14th concerning that part of the American Competitiveness Act dealing with raising the cap on H-1B visas.  Unfortunately I did not see any mention in your letter to the apparent serious abuses in the current H-1B visa program that I cited.   Typically these abuses involve writing a tailor-made advertisement for a technical position, one that no-one else but an alien the employer wishes to certify could fulfill.  I have seen many advertisements over the years giving long lists of exact courses that an applicant must have completed, along with an exact number of publications, and even a foreign language requirement (although the ad says nothing about travel to the particular foreign country).  A further give-away that an abuse of the alien certification process may be being attempted is when the salary offered for the technical position is no greater than the current going rate for American college undergraduates yet the position seeks an advanced degree holder with experience.

To be sure many employers play by the rules and look long and hard to satisfy their personnel needs with American engineering and information technology talent.  My previous letter even mentioned two classes of individuals where it could easily be necessary to look internationally to maintain or improve a companies’ competitiveness, namely when one needs a "superstar" or a "niche-filler".   Unfortunately from my vantage point as an adjunct professor at MSU, WMU and GVSU (as well as an independent consulting engineer) what I see is almost every foreign student who comes here wants to stay here.   These students may co-op or work part time for an American company and are so desperate to stay they will accept any job offer.  I submit that many of the above tailor-made ads are targeted at retaining students who are neither "superstars" nor "niche-fillers".  There are just too few superstars in the world to influence the H1-B numbers.  Similarly there are too many underutilized American engineers looking for challenging assignments to make me believe that a niche can only be filled by a 21-25 year old alien student with a couple of specific courses or some experience with a particular software tool.

Senator, allow me to submit some more troubling evidence of what I think has caused the number of available H1-B visas to be used up so quickly.  Again I cite ads for technical personnel submitted by your own Detroit office of MESC and appearing in Spectrum, the monthly membership magazine for the 200,000 plus U.S. member Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.  This time I will go back to 1986-87.   I attach an ad that appeared in the October 1986 Spectrum magazine, my letter that I sent to the MESC in February 1987 objecting to the need to certify the individual since the wage offered in the ad was so low that no U.S. engineer with the qualifications in optical computing research would respond, and the reply to me from Mr. Thomas J. O’keefe,  the MESC job service representative.  Note that Mr. O’Keefe admitted the ad in question was to certify an alien.
 
 

Similar ads have appeared every month in Spectrum and other magazines and trade newspapers through the present.  I attached two examples from the 1998 Spectrum magazine in my earlier letter.  The Detroit D.O.L. office is just one of many D.O.L. certification offices submitting ads for technical personnel across the country.  As I say, many certification ads are probably legitimate, especially those with salary commensurate with responsibilities.  However a sizeable percentage are quite suspicious and, if filled, may well represent a drain on the number of H1-B visas available for the legitimate need cases.

One way to deter employers that might be trying to abuse the H-1B system would be to require them to attest that they had looked for U.S. workers before seeking foreigners and that they had not laid off Americans to replace them with H-1B workers.  I believe Rep. Lamar Smith from Texas has a bill requiring that in the House.  For some reason the high-tech industry does not favor any such language.  Could you please tell me why, Senator?  Also how do you propose to avoid more abuses with your larger numbers, or do you sincerely believe no serious problem exists?

Senator Abraham, I am also currently the Vice-Chairperson of the 500 member West Michigan Section of the IEEE.  Most of the members are senior engineering professionals and most feel as I do regarding the lack of any reason to raise the H-1B quotas due to the large number of abuses occurring with the present quotas.  I intend to share your views with the local IEEE members in our newsletter.  I am eagerly looking forward to receiving another reply from you.

Sincerely,
 

Dr. Ronald J. Fredricks, P.E.
Consulting Electrical Engineer
 

P.S.  Incidentally, with respect to competitiveness, the Grand Rapids Press just ran a major piece in the May 17 Sunday paper on how German industry has been coming in force to west Michigan because of our current high tech skills and manufacturing competitiveness.  There was no mention of insufficient technical talent here being a deterrent to locating in West Michigan.  Are we that much different than the rest of the country?

CC:
Mr. Chris Currie, IEEE Washington Office
Mr. John Reinert, IEEE-USA President
Mr. Raymond J. Uhalde, Assistant U.S. Secretary of Labor
Representative Vern Ehlers, U.S. House Of Representatives
Dr. Ronald J. Fredricks P.E.,
Consulting Electronics Engineer to High Technology Industry
2046 Foxboro N.W.,  Grand Rapids, MI 49504
Tel (616) 791-9134;  E-Mail K8DMR@aol.com