Durbin wants info on use of visa programs

[OhioChick]

April 01, 2008
(Crain’s) — Motorola Inc., the University of Illinois at Chicago and Accenture are among 25 businesses and organizations targeted by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to determine how they use the country’s H-1B and L-1 visa programs and whether Americans are losing out on jobs as a result.

Sens. Durbin and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on Tuesday sent letters to the 25, which collectively used nearly 20,000 H-1B visas to hire foreign workers for U.S.-based jobs. The firms were identified through data released by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.

Sens. Durbin and Grassley wrote in their letter that they are “concerned that these (visa) programs, as currently structured, are facilitating the outsourcing of American jobs.”

Tuesday was the first day H-1B visa applications were accepted for 2008. Demand for the visas, which will be allocated starting Oct. 1, has far outstripped the number available.

“I have no doubt that we’ll hear arguments all day as to why the cap on H-1B visas should be raised, but nobody should be fooled,” Mr. Grassley said in a statement. “The bottom line is that there are highly skilled American workers being left behind, searching for jobs that are being filled by H-1B visa holders.”

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=28804&seenIt=1