The other day, I was looking for links to videos of the Cohen & Grigsby debacle of 2007. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this incident, it caused a minor scandel in the anti-visa community. Essentially, Cohen & Grigsby, a Pittsburgh law firm specializing in providing H1-B services to employers, gave a conference on how the H1-B process works. They took videos of the event and were so proud of how well things went that they posted the videos on the web. It turns out that the videos documented C&G coaching attendees on how to skirt the requirements in the H1-B program that were designed to protect American workers.

(I am posting this content with permission from a letter a colleague sent to me...)

There are a lot of deceptions in the H-1B law and misleading terms of art. Many of these were designed to give our legislators plausible deniability and cover for what they were legislating [in order to garner re-election campaign funds from the the high-tech industry, its trade associations, its officers, and its lobbyists].

USAID, a department of the government, is even now inking a deal to train workers in Armenia how to do Java programming and to manage call centers. If US workers can't muster enough gumption to express outrage, maybe they don't deserve these jobs. Take note that the "jobs that American workers won't do" has grown to enourmous proportions. I happen to do Java programming, have a Masters degree, and made straight A's in college. It looks like design, implementation, manufacturing and everything else that isn't nailed down is going away.

Andy Grove, Intel CEO, in the past has been a strong proponent of raising H1B visa limits, giving the industry standard line of

* We need these workers to be competitive

* They are brighter than their American counterparts

* American workers need better education

When it comes to illegal immigration, the Democrats have been dead wrong (on visas, both parties are in-the-wrong). This was the reason that I am now an independent progressive instead of a Democratic progressive. Things have changed a lot over my lifetime. When I was young, patriotism (also known as love of country) was a cherished trait. Today the word is used as a perjorative, often in conjunction with the word zealot. If you stand up for your country, you are now a nut.

Sometimes I see small eruptions of sentiments to hire only Americans (and legal residents of course). You'll see new sites like hireamericans.org arrive. While I certainly understand the emotional pull and the therapeutic value of these sites, in my opinion, they will have very, very limited success. There are a couple of limiting issues. First, this action is targeted at the very bottom of the food chain, meaning that it effects will be limited.

Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bombing suspect, was an H1-B visa holder working for Elizabeth Arden. He was an accountant and was paid a whopping $30K per year, which was allowed by law. This article has a timeline that also suggests that his marriage to an American may not have been legitimate.

Let's hear it for the "Best and Brightest" argument that the industry chants whenever the H1-B visa vehicle is discussed.

One of the axioms that the free trade industry espouses is that immigrants are only doing work that Americans won't do.

This was echoed a couple of years ago by John "Give Them All Amnesty" McCain, who made the statement that Americans just won't pick lettuce for $50/hour. Shortly after that, his office was flooded by applications from Americans who wanted that job.