High-tech training program on ropes

The Bush administration wants to end a grant program aimed at training U.S. high-tech workers, and instead is proposing that in fiscal 2003, the program's funds be redirected to help foreign workers gain permanent employment status.Administration officials say the H-1B Training Grant Program, which is funded by the $1,000 fee employers pay for each H-1B visa, does not fulfill its goal of training U.S. workers to fill high-skill jobs now held by foreign workers on those visas. "We have no evidence that it was replacing the need for foreign workers that employers were bringing in, [and] it is an expensive program," said Emily Stover DeRocco, assistant secretary in the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration, which administers the grant program.In 2000, $185 million in H-1B visa fees went to the training grant program, and $69 million went to a National Science Foundation math and science education program, DeRocco said. The decision to redirect the training grant money was made jointly by the Office of Management and Budget and the Labor Department, she said. In a tight 2003 budget cycle, the money spent on H-1B training grants would be better directed to the department's effort to certify foreign workers' eligibility for permanent employment in the United States, DeRocco said. The process can take up to five years in some states, a length of time she called unconscionable.The Labor Department will be responsible for drafting legislation to redirect the money. DeRocco said she hopes the bill will move to Congress this spring. Several technology industry officials said they also believe the H-1B training program is ineffective, but they expressed concern about shifting money away from it. "We are all for reducing the [permanent labor certification] backlog, and we are all for ... having additional funds appropriated so they can do this," said Rajan Eapen, immigration counsel for CACI International Inc. in Arlington, Va. "[But] the deal that was made was that we would pay $1,000 and it would be used for these [training and education] purposes. To a certain extent, I would say we should respect that deal."Executives at Texas Instruments Inc. last year thought the H-1B training grant program might be a source of funds for the Texas Engineering and Technical Consortium, a public-private partnership designed to increase the number of electrical engineers and computer scientists graduating from Texas universities. They were disappointed to discover that the consortium probably would not be eligible for the grant money because it can't be used to help people earn college degrees."Our frustration was here we were doing something that was directly related to growing the pipeline of people with degrees in this high-need area, but [this source of funding] is not accessible to us," said Paula Collins, director of government relations for the Dallas company. "That isn't to say the money used by Department of Labor isn't used in a productive way. It's just not being used to fill the need of the high-tech industry [that is] filled by H-1B visa holders."According to the Bush budget proposal, one grant trained cable installers; another trained licensed practical nurses. A third benefited union members in the entertainment industry.But shifting the money "upsets the political balance and affects the ability to train technical people," said Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America in Arlington, Va."A lot of congresspeople who were reluctant to support the H-1B program did sign on reluctantly because they saw the fees as a way to deal with the worker training issue," Miller said.The General Accounting Office has been asked by the House Science Committee to study the effectiveness of the Labor program funded by H-1B fees, as well as National Science Foundation scholarships funded with the same money, said Joan Mahagan, assistant director of education, work force and income security issues at GAO. The GAO is looking at the extent to which the programs are being used to train U.S. high-skilled workers and potentially increase their numbers, particularly in the IT industry, Mahagan said. GAO investigators will look at how the programs fit in with local work-force strategies, help to meet local work-force needs, and the extent to which the programs are integrated with work-force development practices to meet work-force needs at the national level. The study is in its early stages and will be completed in September, she said.President Bush and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao are committed to skills training programs to retool the American work force for the 21st century, DeRocco said. "The question becomes what is the best way to do that in this budget environment, and Congress will have to make [that] determination," she said.XXXSPLITXXX-Lobbyists for the IT industry worked intensely in 2000 to increase the number of skilled foreign workers allowed to take high-tech jobs under the H-1B visa program. They succeeded in October 2000 when Congress passed and President Clinton signed a bill that boosted the number of visas that could be issued each year from 115,000 to 195,000.The new cap provided relief to employers trying to fill persistent tech job openings in a booming economy. With the visas, foreign skilled workers can take jobs in the United States for up to six years.But times are different now. The feverish hiring in 2000 and early 2001 has given way to layoffs in a downtrodden economy. Before the downturn, some IT executives wondered if 195,000 H-1B visas would be enough. But in fiscal 2001, the first year of the new quota, the Immigration and Naturalization Service approved just 163,200 H-1B visa applications against the cap. The INS also had 29,000 H-1B applications pending that, if approved, would be recorded against the fiscal 2002 cap of 195,000.Despite the downturn, however, employers, industry lobbyists and immigration lawyers still say emphatically that the H-1B program is necessary. The visas absolutely are needed, said Paula Collins, director of government relations for Texas Instruments Inc. The Dallas-based company uses the program to hire electrical engineers. "Supply is not meeting demand," Collins said. About 12,500 electrical engineers graduate from U.S. universities annually, compared to 25,000 in 1987, and about 40 percent of master's degrees awarded in electrical engineering are to foreign nationals, she said. Tech companies need to hire these graduates regardless of citizenship, she said.Lynn Shotwell, director of government relations for the American Council on International Personnel in Washington, said last year's numbers show that having extra visas doesn't do any harm. "As soon as you cut the cap and you have a boom again, you don't want to be in a position where we've set the cap too low," she said.However, at least one member of Congress thinks the H-1B program should be sharply curtailed. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., has introduced legislation that would significantly roll back the number of H-1B visas available each year. The High-tech Work Fairness and Economic Stimulus Act of 2001, introduced by in the House by Tancredo Nov. 1, would cut back the cap to 65,000 and reduce it by 10,000 for each quarter-point above a 6 percent unemployment rate. "Importing hundreds of thousands of foreign workers at a time of growing unemployment is obviously absurd," Tancredo said in an op-ed piece in the February issue of Optimize magazine.Although H-1B proponents don't expect the H-1B debate to heat up until 2003 when the cap expires, they are watching closely any attempts to alter the program. Some observers see Tancredo's proposal as an attempt to end the program altogether."I can't think of anything that would be more of a problem than rolling back the cap," said Rajan Eapen, immigration counsel for CACI International Inc. in Arlington, Va. "The need for highly skilled workers is just going to increase. If we want to get out of this recession, we are going to need these workers."