(continued)
But demand for visa applications has remained robust through the economic downturn. Besides the surge of applications this summer, the INS still has 29,000 pending applications that it has shifted into the current fiscal year.
Daniel M. Larson, director of government relations for Texas Instruments Inc., where H-1B workers number 800 and make up about 3% of the work force, said the market for electrical engineers is still extremely competitive.
"We are dependent on H-1B workers and consider them a valuable part of our company," said Larson, whose company has laid off 2,500 workers in the last year. He did not have figures on whether any H-1B workers were part of the layoffs.
For some technology workers laid low by the economic slump, the explanations provide little consolation.
"The level of anger over this program in the technology industry just keeps rising," said John Miano, chairman of the Programmer's Guild, a Summit, N.J., trade group that represents software engineers.
Gene Nelson, a divorced father of two, alleged that most of the H-1B visa holders working at Boston-based Genuity Inc. kept their positions this summer when he and 500 workers lost their jobs at the Internet infrastructure services provider.
"Big companies basically want a work force of independent contractors . . . they can pay low wages to," said Nelson, who made $49,000 a year. If it weren't for the H-1B program, Nelson said, he would still "have a job and be making more money."
Genuity did not return calls seeking comment.
The rancor has spilled over to Congress, where at least one lawmaker has introduced legislation that would scale back the controversial program.
The H-1B visa program was created by the Immigration Act of 1990. It allowed companies to hire foreign workers with hard-to-find technical skills. Roughly 60% of H-1B visa holders are in computer programming and other information technology fields, according to a report released last year by the General Accounting Office.
Workers are supposed to earn the same salary and benefits as their American-born counterparts.
Amid the tight job market, there are concerns about abuses of the H-1B visa holders themselves. A few immigrants have begun campaigning for reform of the program, citing instances of employers paying low wages and threatening to seek the deportation of foreign workers who complain.
The GAO--which found that foreigners were offered a median starting salary of $45,000 last year--said there is little policing of the H-1B program by the INS.
Devarakonda, of the Immigrants Support Network, agreed with the GAO's assessment. "The current system is certainly flawed," he said. "The government doesn't have the resources to police" H-1B.