A computer science professor's never-ending H-1B fight

What would the H-1B program look like in your model? It would be a lot smaller, way smaller, and the criteria for qualifying would look similar to the EB1, the way it is now.

The presidential candidates all seem to support the H-1B program. And Congress would have increased the cap last year had it reached an agreement on immigration reform. It seems as if you are fighting a losing battle. How would you define success at this point? And what would constitute success in this environment? There are degrees of success. A glass is half-full point of view would be: "Gee, we've held them off this long [from a cap increase], that's pretty good." It's a success of sort. On the other extreme, you restore H-1B to the original intention of just bringing in the best and the brightest.

But what would be a realistic goal? A realistic goal is part of the Durbin/Grassley [H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act] bill in the Senate. By far, the most important part of the Dubin/Grassley bill is to redefine prevailing wage. Currently, the employers by statute are required to pay prevailing wage, but the definition of prevailing wage is just full of loopholes. The Dubin/Grassley bill would fix that by setting a definition of prevailing wage that really would make it the market wage.

The second most important aspect of the bill is that it would take the current restrictions on H-1B dependent employers [employers that have a significant number of H-1B workers based on certain percentages of their workforce] and make them applicable to all H-1B employers. There are several restrictions on H-1B-dependent employers. The one that would be the most important would be an antilayoff provision. H-1B-dependent companies are not allowed to hire any H-1B workers within 90 days of a layoff, either prior or afterward. That restriction under the Grassley/Durbin bill would apply to all H-1B employers, and that would be something that would be really worth having. Employers would also be required to try to hire Americans first.

How far would any of those restrictions go to mitigating the impact of H-1B workers? If there was a good prevailing-wage law, the majority of H-1Bs would not be there today, so the impact would be giant. They wouldn't be able hire H-1Bs as cheap labor.

You have written that computer science departments must be honest with students regarding career opportunities in the field, so what do you tell students today? I am chair of our undergraduate curriculum committee, and every year, I give a presentation to high school seniors and their parents. I tell them that things are fairly good for new gradates right now, they aren't nearly as good as they were in the late 1990s, but once you are out 10 years or so, then you've got to be nimble. It's much harder to find work in the field after you have been around in the field for 10 years or so. A lot of the parents themselves are engineers. Their parents know what's going on. In many cases, the parents in Silicon Valley are encouraging their kids not to go into the field because they know what's going on. That's all I tell them.

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