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Firebell in the Night: The Coming L-1 Crisis and What We Can Do About Itby Gary Endelman
As the H-1B has become more radioactive, interested employers have increasingly turned to the L-1 as a less onerous alternative unburdened by labor union attack and DOL oversight. New L-1s soared by 50% between 1998 and 2002; the first 5 months of fiscal 2003 saw an additional 10% rise in L usage according to State Department data. Over this same period, by contrast, H-1B visas fell by 27% through 2002 and another 17% thus far in FY 2003. There were 384,000 H-1B temporary workers in 2001 while 329,000, nearly as many, were working here as L-1 intracompany transfers. The continuing debate over H-1Bs has so sucked all the oxygen out of employment based immigration that, below the radar, few have noticed that the L-1 has begun to replace it as the work visa of choice. Critical articles on the L1 are not new. What is different is that such negative treatment is no longer confined to the nativist fringe but has crossed over into the mainstream press. That is why the Business Week story on major US companies outsourcing their IT functions, laying off Americans and replacing them with L-1 international workers supplied by Tata Consulting, India's largest technology consulting firm, should be, to quote Thomas Jefferson's reaction to the Missouri Compromise, a "firebell in the night" to the immigration bar and its business clients. Sound like an overwrought exaggeration? Listen to the Business Week report and think again:
Representative John L. Mica (R-FL) vows to amend the L-1 law if the Justice Department does not prosecute Siemens Corporation for allegedly replacing US workers with cheaper L-1 Indian nationals at its Lake Mary, Florida office. Congressman Mica now condemns the L-1 as a "backdoor to cheap labor" while a sympathetic Business Week notes with obvious disapproval that "Companies like Tata have grabbed a US market share in IT consulting in part by exploiting the L-1s loophole." This comes at a time when America is poised to embark upon war with Iraq, the economy shows no signs of revival and the anti-immigration faction with the Republican Party seems to have gained the upper hand on Capitol Hill. The most recent issue of Immigration & Business News Comment lays out the legislative landscape for the 108th Congress as it begins work:
Faced with such reports, the friends of the L-1 visa need not panic but must plan for the future. A rationale for keeping, even expanding, this visa must be fashioned while there is still time. A variety of possible solutions readily come to mind. Some may want to set a hard annual limit on L1 admissions. Others may favor a flexible cap that allows for any ceiling to be exceeded if clear national benefit can be demonstrated, perhaps as judged by a points system that places high emphasis upon cutting-edge skills in industries that are most actively in need of more workers. Skeptics may prefer to link the L-1 to rates of occupational unemployment when regional and local variations are factored in. If this happens, however, the price for such a check on L1 admissions should be that no subsequent test of the relevant job market need be repeated as a condition precedent for attaining green card status. Precisely because the enemy has yet to strike, if we marshall our defenses now, all may not be lost. If we retreat into the false security of an illusory denial, and pretend that the future will always resemble the present, then the L-1 could be diffcult to save. To do nothing, to deny that the L is in danger, guarantees that, if a serious backlash against the L does come, it will be deeper and more painful that any of us either wants or expects. Our present immigration priorities must be reversed. It should be harder to come to America, but easier to stay. We need the L-1 and now is the time to tell the nation all the reasons why. Act now friends of the L, while there is still time.
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