Dear Readers:

Well, get ready. By mid-February it looks like we’ll be out of H-1B numbers until October. The anti-immigration zealots who have been arguing relentlessly that H-1B workers are taking jobs from deserving Americans will now have achieved a key objective.

But maybe the cap being reached so early has a silver lining. The burden of proof will now shift. With such a long stretch of time without H-1B visas, if it is really true that lots of Americans are losing out on finding good jobs because of H-1B workers, we should see a sudden and pronounced change. Employers need the workers and if, as the restrictionists claim, they are just hiring H-1Bs for cheap labor, then they’ll have no choice but to hire Americans now. So let’s watch and see.

My guess is the story will be the exact opposite, particularly in many fields where there are shortages of key professionals. I look forward to hearing the restrictionists explain to an impoverished mother in rural Mississippi why the pediatrician her town has been waiting on for years cannot come. With a rapidly growing physician shortage in this country that is expected to approach 200,000 in the next few years, the lack of H-1B visas to bring physicians to underserved communities has a real impact.

I look forward to hearing the restrictionists explain to parents and schoolchildren why they will be in larger classes this fall and will not receive the quality education they expect. There is a shortage of school teachers in many parts of the country and H-1Bs are frequently being used to help school districts ensure there are an adequate number of teachers for our kids.

I look forward to hearing the restrictionists explain to economic development agencies around the country why foreign companies seeking to locate factories in the US cannot bring over many key managers, executives and essential employees. When these companies choose to bypass setting up factories in the US because it is to difficult for them to get their people to the US to oversee their investments, it will be interesting how the restrictionists explain to us that this is a good thing. I’ve always thought it was interesting, by the way, why the Lou Dobbs of the world, complain night after night about American companies locating factories in other parts of the world, but we do not think there is anything wrong with the thousands of companies from around the world that have opened factories here.

Maybe if we cannot get Congress’ attention to deal with this issue, we should bring in the big guns – the fashion models. Many of our readers may not know that foreign fashion models have a special type of H-1B visa. That special H-1B visa is subject to the H-1B cap.

My point is that the media and the restrictionists’ efforts to simplify the H-1B debate by portraying the visa as just a tech worker visa does the country a disservice. H-1Bs fill jobs in a wide variety of fields, many of which are NOT in areas where there are a lot of unemployed Americans. Hopefully, this message will get through.

In firm news, I received a nice accolade this week. Business Tennessee Magazine has published its list of the 101 best lawyers of our state’s 6000+ attorneys. And yours truly made the list. Congrats also to my friend Linda Rose who is an excellent immigration lawyer and who also made the list. The article can be found on our web site at www.visalaw.com/news.

Finally, as always, we remind readers that we're lawyers who make our living representing immigration clients and employers seeking to comply with immigration laws. We would love to discuss becoming your law firm. Just go to http://www.visalaw.com/intake.html to request an appointment or call us at 800-748-3819 or 901-682-6455.

Regards,

Greg Siskind