Immigration Legislation for Dummies

Authors note:
This is a chapter of a larger thesis concerning the Globalist mantra of "the free movement of human capital, " and "full employment is assumed."

How do we allow highly-skilled guestworkers without detritus, or harmful effects to the domestic workforce?

Highly-skilled guestworker permits are labor subsidies granted to employers. When addressing highly-skilled guestworkers, it is reasonable to address the resolution of the following problems:

The purported labor shortage
Over subscription in certain occupations
The free-market wage system
Guestworker caps – housing
inflation - wage stagnation
Guestworker repatriation

The purported labor shortage
Labor shortages must be resolved domestically, the permanent cycling of guestworkers does not address the core purported labor shortage. Employers must subsidize the resolution of the labor shortage through educational grants. This educational subsidy should increased with each annual renewal per guestworker.

Economic incentives (incrementally ascending work-permit costs per guestworker) would motivate the employer to either sponsor the employee for citizenship, or replace the guestworker with a domestic employee as soon as possible.

The behavior of guestworker employers must be modified through an ascending education tariff to deter long term guestworker dependence.

Over subscription in certain occupations
Computer-related occupations represent 41.7% of all 2001-2005 initial employment H-1B approvals. Computer-Related payroll occupations represent 3.09% of the 2005 Full-Time wage and salary earners

The H-1B visa lottery system does not ensure that the best talent is approved for employment and many occupations are short-changed because the "Computer-related occupations" employment category is oversubscribed.

The free-market wage system
The value of American citizenship is now in question, excessive immigration diminishes the value of American citizenship; without immigration caps, American citizenship becomes valueless and living standards cannot be maintained. The scarcity of guestworker visas ensures that these visas retain value – the "brightest and the best" will no longer have interest in migration when the work-permit loses value.

Replacing the lottery system with a free-market system:
Each highly-skilled guestworker visa, should be evaluated in terms of the highest salary offer within each occupation where a visa is petitioned.

Similar to the method that professional sports teams draft college athletes, each team (occupation) would take-turns bidding for talent. The highest bidding firm, within the occupation, would win the "first-round" guestworker approval – ensuring that the most competitive salary offers "win" the guestworker approval within each industry.

By rotating through all of the occupations desiring guestworker visas, the over-subscribe occupation(s) would be last in line for approval and subject to the highest salary selection criterion.

Guestworker caps – housing inflation - wage stagnation
One important economic indicator for overall immigration caps should the availability of rental housing. Immigrants, our children and many wage-earners are entering a hostile rental housing market which has 636,000 fewer occupied rental units than in 1999, while growth in the Civilian noninstitutional population (16 and over) was 21,236,000. (1999 – 2006 Census and BLS data.)

(The 1997 "Second Home Mortgage Deduction" should be revisited, as millions of housing units are now listed as "Vacant Year Round.")

Support:
America's Rental Housing: Homes for a Diverse Nation
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/hvs/prevann.html
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/outside.jsp?survey=ln
Out of Reach

Guestworker annual caps would be some fraction of the (rental housing based) overall immigration caps.

America can no longer afford to allow housing inflation to cause inflation in salary-requirement. Affordable housing is the key to America’s global competitiveness. Reducing the wage-earner’s housing costs would in effect increase the wage-earners disposable income without a salary increase – wage-stagnation can be defeated by lowering sustenance costs.

Guestworker repatriation
To encourage guestworker repatriation, guestworkers from countries without retirement totalization agreements should have the option of being refunded the employee paid Social Security withholdings at the U.S. consulate in the country of origin.

H-1B Annual Attorney fee estimates

CompeteAmerica, an immigration lobbying firm, has published a document called, "Highly Educated Foreign Professionals: Separating Myth from Reality." Within this document, estimates are published concerning the costs associated with the H-1B visa.

"In addition to wage requirements, it is expensive just to hire an H-1B worker. Taking into account the recruitment and training fee (generally $1500), the anti-fraud fee ($500), the filing fee ($190), the “premium processing” fee that is often necessary ($1000) and the legal fees and costs, U.S. employers typically spend between $5000 and $6000 just to secure an initial H-1B approval. And that is on top of the recruitment, compliance and other administrative costs."

Subtracting the training, anti-fraud, filing and premium processing fee, the remainder is "legal fees and costs," in the amount of $1,810.00 to $2810.00. (Even if the H-1B is denied, the legal fees must be paid.)

Year / Initial H1B Petitions
2002 = 109,576
2003 = 108,526
2004 = 163,549
2005 = 117536
Total = 499,187

The CompeteAmerica estimate (range) of H-1B legal fees and costs, $ 1,810.00 per application and $2810.00 are shown below.

Attorneys fees H-1B Initial Petitions @ $ 1,810.00
2002 = $ 198,332,560.00
2003 = $ 196,432,060.00
2004 = $ 296,023,690.00
2005 = $ 212,740,160.00
Total = $ 903,528,470.00

Attorneys fees H-1B Initial Petitions @ $ 2,810.00
2002 = $ 307,908,560.00
2003 = $ 304,958,060.00
2004 = $ 459,572,690.00
2005 = $ 330,276,160.00
Total = $ 1,402,715,470.00

The initial employment side of the H-1B is not the entire story -- however CompeteAmerica was not kind enough to provide an estimate of legal fees for continuing employment approvals.

H-1B Continuing employment approvals
2002 = 93,953
2003 = 112,026
2004 = 156,921
2005 = 150,204

Total = 513,104

On the government side, the H-1B program also generates substantial funding.

(Initial H-1B employment approvals only)

2002 - 2005 Recruitment and training fees = $ 684,483,000.00

2002 - 2005 Anti-fraud fees = $ 228,161,000.00

Reference:

http://www.competeamerica.org/economy/myths_realities/index.html

http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/H1B_FY05_Characteristics.pdf

Unemployment to Population Report June, 2007

Unemployment to Population Report June, 2007


Employment-population ratio (Current Population Survey)
"The proportion of the civilian noninstitutional population aged 16 years and over that is employed. " http://www.bls.gov/bls/glossary.htm#E

This entry contained a faulty data-table and a mathematical error.
Please see http://immigration-weaver.blogspot.com/2008/02/responsible-parents-must-oppose.html For current Employment to population ratios.

Series Id: LNS12300001
Series title: (Seas) Employment-Population Ratio - Men
Labor force status: Employment-population ratio
ge: 16 years and over
Sex: Men

Women 16 and over:
Employment-population ratio June, 2000 = 57.5%
Employment-population ratio June, 2007 = 56.7%
Increase in civilian noninstitutional population (June, 2000 – June, 2007) = 9,063,000
Increase Employment (Jobs: June, 2000 – June, 2007) = 4,254,265
Jobs required to attain June, 2000 Employment-population ratio of 57.5% = 4,808,735

Additional jobless persons:
June, 2007 Unemployment Level – Women = 3,104,000 (4.4%)

Series Id: LNS12300002
Series title: (Seas) Employment-Population Ratio - Women
Labor force status: Employment-population ratio
Age: 16 years and over
Sex: Women

No shortage of Computer Professionals, 446,179 in Reserve

2000 - 2006 Computer-related occupations displacement analysis:

(click image to enlarge)

Number of Jobs Lost during recession 2000-2002 = 134,960
5.11% of yr. 2000 employment (economic contraction)

Growth in Computer-related occupations 2000-2006 = 326,600
12.36% of yr. 2000 employment.

H-1B initial computer-related employment approvals 2000-2006 = 328,968
12.45% of yr. 2000 employment.

Comp. Science B.S. Degrees (1) 2000-2006 = 313,219
11.85% of yr. 2000 employment.

(1) U.S. Citizen & permanent resident B.S. Comuter Science

Employment opportunities for 315,587 American, newly degreed, B.S. C.S. and 134,960 displaced Comp. Sci. workers (2001 - 2006) = -2,368

Reserve U.S. Citizen/Perm Resident computer-related capacity = 448,179

Winners and losers in Computer-related occupations
Occupation & Loss/Gain (2000-2006)
Computer and Information Scientists, Research = 1,850
Computer Programmers = (-134,710)
Computer Software Engineers, Applications = 97,880
Computer Software Engineers, Systems Software = 64,450
Computer Support Specialists = (-8,110)
Computer Systems Analysts = (-16,840)
Database Administrators = 1,840
Network and Computer Systems Administrators = 55,480
Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts = 84,490
Computer Specialists, All Other = 180,270

Associate Degree note:


From 1995 - 2004, 174,185 Associate degrees were awarded in Computer Science. For informational purposes only -- some B.S. holders may also hold A.S. degrees.


http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/tables/tabc-2.xls

Other Information:
Business Week: Engineering
Gap? Fact and Fiction, By Vivek Wadhwa

The Duke University Study: PDF


NPR interview: "Engineer Shortage? DukeStudy Says No," April 30, 2007, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9910492

Data:
Employment data must be downloaded by year:
http://www.bls.gov/oes/home.htm#data
National Cross-Industry
15-0000 Computer and Mathematical Science Occupations

Educational Data:

TABLE C-6. Bachelor's degrees, by field, citizenship, and race/ethnicity: 1995–2004
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/tables/tabc-6.xls

H-1B Data:
http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/H1B_FY05_Characteristics.pdf
http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/FY2001Charact.pdf