[BretLudwig]

Why Arent The H1-B Hogs Satisfied With The O-1 €œExtraordinary
Ability€� Visa? Oh, Wait A Minute€¦

By Ilana Mercer

"When open-border enthusiasts discover that Im both an immigrant
(from South Africa, via Canada) and an immigration restrictionist, they
often order me to go back whence I came, mouthing the mantra about "a
nation of immigrants."

Maybe theyre right. Maybe Obamaos multicultural America has no use
for a contrarian, with an anachronistic attachment to British English
style and to the ideas of limited government and self-governance.

This scribes spouse, however, is a different matter entirely. The
scientifically super-smart nestle under the far reaches of the IQ Bell
Curve, and are, therefore, in short supply. That their skills make the
developed world go around also helps immeasurably to make them highly
desirable immigrants.

As Peter Bauer (and Brimelow) have belabored, economic development is not
a function of cheap, abundant labor, but of innovation. A superpower, even
if its on the decline, ought to be emphasizing innovation-oriented, not
labor-intense, forms of production. More mechanization and less
Mexicanization..

In exchange for the spouses exceptional abilities and qualifications,
he was awarded the O-1 visa. And we, in short order, gained green cards.

(My daughter was subsequently stripped of hers on a debatable technicality
when entering the US from Canada. This took a heroic show of force from the
brave, U.S. citizenship and immigration law enforcers at the border. Moral:
U.S. immigration law is enforced against people who obey the law. No doubt
her hard-won green card was needed urgently for a real Bandido.)

Immigration lawyers have made it their business to navigate the labyrinth
of visa programs. According to one such law firm, Houston-based Zhang &
Associates, the O-1 visa

"€¦is a nonimmigrant status category for aliens of extraordinary ability
in the sciences, the arts (including the television and motion picture
industry), education, business, and athletics. This is an
employment-related status that allows qualified aliens to live and work in
the United States.. An O-1 petition is sponsored by an American employer."

More significantly, there is no cap on the number of O-1 visa entrants
allowed. Access to this limited pool of talent is unlimited.

Zhang confirms that "O-1 applicants are not subject to any cap or quota.
Each case is considered on its individual merits; the total number of O-1
applicants that year does not affect ones chance of approval."

Whats more, those even more gifted than my guy are given green cards on
the spot. A one-of-a-kind Afrikaner RF engineer we know, who possesses a
PhD, publications galore, patented software programs and products, and a
company, was told to hop on a plane, family in tow.

My point vis-Ã*-vis the O-1 visa is this: The primary H-1B hogs€”Infosys
(and another eight, sister Indian firms), Microsoft, and Intel€”are
forever claiming that they are desperate for talent. But, in reality, they
have unlimited access to individuals with unique abilities through the
open-ended O-1 visa program€¦if they really wanted it.

Granted€”and heres the catch€”the O-1 visa application process costs
double in legal fees what the H-1B visa application costs. The latter is
certainly easier to scam than the former.

But immigration lawyers are doing their best to overcome this obstacle.
Zhang boasts that in the case of a client it calls "Mr. Gao", a mere
masters degree, one publication and an approved patent did the trick.
And VDARE.COMs Rob Sanchez has reported a case in which an Argentine
pin-up girl got an O-1.

"[A] recently published investigation [PDF] by The U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Service, which oversees [the H-1B program], found a fraud rate
exceeding 20 percent, with violations ranging from nonexistent businesses
being granted visas, to phony job descriptions." [Lou Dobbs, November 1,
2008]

Touted as a means of trawling for the best and the brightest, the H-1B
system clearly has become anything but. "Ordinary talent doing ordinary
work" is Norm Matloffs overall assessment of the H-1B crop. A VDARE.COM
contributor, and longtime critic of the H1-B racket, Professor Matlofs
analysis has been cited extensively.

The 65,000 yearly recipients of H-1B visas are mostly "average workers".
H-1B recruits are supposed to posses at minimum a bachelors degree, or
"graduate equivalent" work experience. Twenty thousand additional H-1B
visas are set aside for high-technology workers with the master's degree.
The masters is thus the exception within the H1-B visa category.

The Department of Labor uses four levels of classification. The first two
require little or no judgment. They are entry-level positions, which is
where the vast majority of H1-B workers are concentrated. Very few, only
11 percent, fall into the top category and "plan and conduct
work-requiring judgment and independent evaluation"€”DOLs words.

Three percent of Microsofts 900 H-1B visa workers are level four
workers€”i.e., do work that requires independent judgment. Among the
companies that push the hardest for expanding the H-1B program, level-four
workers entrusted with higher order thinking are rare.

But whether theyre capable of conceptualizing or not, recipients of the
H-1B visa are, nevertheless, getting a good deal. Visa advocates perpetuate
the tall tale that the H-1B visa provides a steady supply of talent; visa
opponents, for their part, like to cry croc about exploitation and
slave-labor. I guess they think that misplaced compassion adds force to
their arguments.

H-1B visa holders are not paid inferior wages. From the fact that an
oversupply of high-tech workers has lowered wages for all techies, it does
not follow that these (average) men and women are being exploited. Rather,
it is the glut of average worker bees€”their abundance€”that has
depressed wages.

(Incidentally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms that wages for
computer programmers have been falling. All the while industry whines
about labor shortages. Shouldnt a labor shortage be pushing wages up?)

Before dissolving in puddles of (misplaced) pity, remember: Voluntary
exchanges are by definition advantageous to their participants. They
involve giving up something one values less for something one values more
and finding someone else with "opposite valuations".

The H-1B visa holder forfeits his (apparently unexceptional) labor for a
salary many times the salary hed get in India or China or Pakistan. If
he were not incalculably better off than he was in his previous life, he
would not have taken a calculated risk in a plush American office.

The benefits to "lazy" locals, left out of the decision-making loop, are
less obvious€”unless one considers the joys of a "diverse" work force.
These can entail anything from communication glitches, to cries of "Allahu
Akbar" from the companys "multidenominational" (curiously monopolized)
prayer and meditation rooms, to experiencing "Islamic toilet etiquette"
(Jamal carrying a cup of water along to the john).

Theoretically, the H-1B program could be totally abolished and all needed
Einsteins (and pin-up girls) imported through the O-1 program€¦they just
need to demonstrate €œextraordinary ability€�.

But industry lobbyists never suggest this. Funny thing."

Ilana Mercer (email her) is a weekly columnist for WorldNetDaily.com, a
fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies. and the author of
Broad Sides: One Womans Clash With a Corrupt Culture, the Foreword to
which was written by Peter Brimelow. Her website is www.ilanamercer.com;
her blog www.barelyablog.com Her upcoming book is Into the Cannibals
Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa ((Washington
Summit Publishers).


http://www.vdare.com/mercer/081117_visa.htm

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