A new study has been put out by EPI that proves foreign guest workers are all about cheap labor, technology transfer and not about immigration into the U.S.

In Bridge to Immigration or Temporary Cheap Labor?, we have these reasons corporations are busy using foreign guest workers.

With the abundant and easy availability of H-1B and L-1 visas, coupled with loopholes that allow below-market wages, offshore outsourcing firms have had little reason to hire American workers.

For example, even though Tata Consultancy had more 10,843 workers in the United States in 2007, only 739 (9%) were Americans. Why are these firms not interested in hiring American workers?

Offshore outsourcing firms rely on the H-1B and related L-1 programs for three principal reasons.

First, it facilitates their knowledge-transfer operations, where they rotate in foreign workers to learn U.S. workers’ jobs.

Second, the H-1B and L-1 programs provide them an inexpensive, on-site presence that enables them to coordinate offshore functions. Many functions that are done remotely still require a significant amount of physical presence at the customer site.

Third, the H-1B and L-1 programs allow the U.S. operations to serve as a training ground for foreign workers who then rotate back to their home country to do the work more effectively than they could have without such training in the United States.

Obviously Indian offshore outsourcers are heavy users of these foreign guest worker Visas, but even U.S. corporations clearly are doing the same thing.

There is only one flaw with this research, the recommendations do not strongly require a condition, no loopholes, enforceable that require Americans preferred for every job as well as every seat in educational facilities. When accepting university students, we need to make sure that opportunity was not denied to an American. After all our educational system is strongly subsidized. Shouldn't those study opportunities be going to Americans first and foremost?

We need an affirmative action program based on citizenship across the board, enforceable, proof put onto the employer, to force these companies to stop this inane labor arbitrage and offshore outsourcing of our jobs.

The paper has numerous tables and data proving the point. So next time you hear foreign guest workers proclaimed to be about immigration, know that's just pure political spin to keep on displacing U.S. workers.