Bills to correct visa abuses.

In his March 10th article, "Your Job May Be Next!" this magazine's William F. Jasper wrote: "[C]orporate lobbyists prevailed on Congress and President George Bush (the elder) to pass legislation in 1990 creating the special H-1B visa program allowing a flood of alien hi-tech workers into the U.S." Mr. Jasper went on to describe another visa program allowing U.S. companies to import hundreds of thousands of employees from foreign subsidiaries, affiliates, or parent companies on L-1 visas each year with no annual limit on the number of such visas issued. He concluded that Americans must force Congress to abolish the H-1B and L1 visa programs.

Two important bills were introduced in Congress in July to correct the abuses of these visa programs. On July 9th, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) introduced H.R. 2688 "to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to repeal authorities relating to H-1B visas for temporary workers." On the next day Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) introduced H.R. 2702 "to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act with respect to the admission of L-1 intracompany transferee nonimmigrants." The Tancredo bill would repeal the H-1B program outright. In contrast the DeLauro bill would not repeal the L-1 program; however, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform's "2003 Congressional [Summer] Recess Action Plan," H.R. 2702 "would place a cap of 35,000 on the number of L-1 visas allotted annually, deny visas to any company that has laid off an American worker within six months of filing an application, and require L-1 visa workers to be paid U.S. prevailing wages. DeLauro's bill would also prevent companies from outsourcing L-1 visa workers to other companies."