House bill would create 45,000 more visas for tech workers

The proposal by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, is far smaller than a Silicon Valley-backed version introduced last month in the Senate that would boost the H-1B program by nearly 300,000 visas over the next three years. The booming high-tech sector says it needs hundreds of thousands of new workers immediately. But Smith says his plan for a one-time boost of 45,000 visas, which would raise this year_s allotment to 160,000, is sufficient. Republican Reps. Tom Campbell, whose California district includes Silicon Valley; Bob Goodlatte of Virginia;and Chris Cannon of Utah are co-sponsors of the bill. The bipartisan Senate bill offered by the chairmen of the Senate Judiciary Committee and its immigration subcommittee would raise the H-1B allotment to 195,000 annually for three years. An industry trade group, the Computing Technology Industry Association, claims nearly 269,000 high-tech jobs are now unfilled. The problem costs U.S. businesses $4.5 billion a year in lost productivity, according to the association. But Smith said there is no "credible or objective study documenting the high-tech labor shortage." The National Science Foundation, which was directed by Congress in 1998 to undertake a study of the high-tech industry_s job needs, isn_t due to complete its work before fall. Organized labor, which opposes increases in visas, contends the foreign workers are unnecessary, and that high-tech executives are looking overseas chiefly to hold down wages. Critics also contend the program is rife with fraud.