Firms try working around visa shortage

[OhioChick]

Some U.S. companies open sites abroad, while others plan multiple filings as H-1B application season nears.
By Jim Puzzanghera and Michelle Quinn, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
March 31, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Driven crazy by U.S. immigration policy, Microsoft Corp. executives decided to drive some of their employees north.

Unable to land enough visas for a third of the foreign-born engineers and computer scientists it wanted to hire -- many of them newly minted graduates of U.S. universities -- the Redmond, Wash., company opened a software development center just over the Canadian border last year. About 150 people now work in Vancouver.

"Our immigration system makes it very difficult for U.S. firms to hire highly skilled foreign workers," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told the House Science and Technology Committee this month as he pleaded for more visas. "At a time when talent is the key to economic success, it makes no sense to educate people in our universities, often subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, and then insist that they return home."

Frustrated by the limited number of these so-called H-1B visas awarded each spring in a random lottery to highly skilled foreigners, U.S. technology executives have tried to find ways around the problem while lobbying aggressively to increase the annual cap.

Microsoft, Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and other large companies have opened or expanded research facilities outside the United States. And some companies have resorted to gaming the system: filing multiple applications, along with the $1,570 to $3,320 filing fee, for each potential hire to boost the odds of winning one of the coveted visas. The fee is higher for large companies and for expedited filings.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-visas31mar31,1,1441722.story

I'm so sick of hearing of this so-called "shortage." :mad:

[2Design]

1. go to other countries and exploit their education system to pay for

college for these foreign nationals - if you are unwilling to hire americans - leave - we don't need you taking our tax breaks and begging local states for money to stay when you hire outside - the game needs to be called - you have exploited the usa enough - you are making billions of dollars - go elsewhere