U.S. House of Representatives

November 8, 2007

**Keep America Competitive**

**Cosponsor H.R. 1930, the SKIL bill**

Dear Colleague,

            Please draw your attention to the following editorial,
published in *The Wall Street Journal* on Friday, November 2, 2007. 

The editorial justly criticizes a Senate proposal to increase fees for
businesses that choose to hire highly-skilled workers via H-1B visas. 
These businesses, which are already required to pay \$1,500 for each
individual on an H-1B visa, will now be required to pay \$5,000 per
person.  The proposal does this at a time when the European Union is
actively recruiting U.S.-educated foreigners who are unable to attain
visas due to a cap that does not reflect market demand.

For those of you who are as concerned as I am about keeping our economy
competitive in the world market, I invite you to become a cosponsor of
H.R. 1930, the Securing Knowledge, Innovation, and Leadership Act of
2007 (SKIL Act), which would increase the H-1B visa cap from 65,000 to
115,000.  For more information, please contact Natalie Farr in my office
at 5-3361.

Sincerely,

/s/

John Shadegg

Member of Congress

# The Grassley Visa Tax *November 2, 2007*

Congress has failed to pass immigration reform, so industries that
depend on foreign workers have already been left in the lurch. But
Senator Chuck Grassley now wants to make things worse.

Last week Mr. Grassley, the Iowa Republican, slipped an amendment into a
spending bill that would tax businesses that hire skilled immigrants an
additional \$3,500 per visa to a total of \$5,000 each. According to the
National Foundation for American Policy, this represents a \$3.1 billion
tax increase over five years on some of America\'s fastest growing
companies.           

Companies employing foreign professionals who are here on H-1B visas
already pay \$1,500 per individual. The fee was originally set at \$500
in 1998, but at least past increases have also included a rise in the
number of available visas. When Mr. Grassley floated this tax back in
April, it would have been part of a Senate bill that lifted the H-1B
visa cap by 50,000 and put in place an escalator provision that allowed
market demand to determine future increases.

But the Grassley Tax proposed last week includes no such trade-off,
leaving the H-1B visa cap of 65,000 per year intact. The need to
increase this arbitrary quota, if not eliminate it, is clear. This year,
the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received approximately
120,000 applications for H-1Bs on the first day they were available.

In addition to the hiring fee, current law already requires H-1B
professionals to be paid the higher of the prevailing wage or actual
wage paid to Americans in similar positions. So it\'s not as if U.S.
businesses pursue foreign engineers, computer scientists and the like
because they\'re cheaper to employ. Nor are these foreign workers
overrunning the country and displacing Americans. In 2006, new H-1B
professionals comprised 0.07 percent of the labor force.

Citing anecdotal evidence \-- \"People have called our office,\" a
spokeswoman tells us \-- Senator Grassley says the fee increase is
necessary to combat abuse and fraud. But the back wages owed to H-1B
hires amounted to just \$4.6 million in 2006, down from \$5.2 million
the previous year. In a \$12 trillion economy, those numbers are
infinitesimal. Department of Labor investigations reveal that some 90%
of violations are paperwork offenses and good-faith misunderstandings.

The Senator also maintains that his tax increase is needed to fund more
federal programs for high-achieving U.S-born students, who are
notoriously underrepresented in math and science. Leaving aside the
dubious notion that the federal government doesn\'t spend enough money
on education, the high-tech industry has already shelled out more than
\$2 billion to fund scholarships over the past decade. And that\'s not
counting their other philanthropic efforts, nor the state and local
taxes these companies pay to support public education.

Mr. Grassley\'s justifications notwithstanding, the reality is that
these skilled foreign nationals help U.S. companies compete globally and
keep jobs and innovation inside the U.S. This is especially important
when other countries are opening their doors to this human capital. The
European Union, which says it\'s facing a shortage of some 20 million
skilled workers over the next two decades, has announced plans to
streamline its immigration process to attract foreign talent.

So while even European bureaucrats are wising up to the importance of
attracting global talent to keep an economy competitive, a Republican
Senator is joining liberal protectionists to move the U.S. in the
opposite direction. Go figure. If Congress can\'t see its way to fix our
broken immigration system, the least it can do is not drive more jobs
offshore.