Dallas ISD, area firms sought worker visas amid job losses

[OhioChick]

06:16 AM CDT on Monday, March 30, 2009

North Texas companies and the Dallas Independent School District requested visas last year for hundreds of foreign workers to fill professional positions – even as the nation's economy faltered.

The hiring of H-1B workers has been debated nationally as part of the federal stimulus package and locally because of layoffs at DISD. Congress weighed in last month, adding rules that companies that take stimulus money must follow during their next round of hiring. The legislation sets up more regulatory hurdles for companies, including a requirement that companies can't replace laid-off U.S. workers with foreign workers.

About 50 companies, along with DISD, applied for H-1B visas for jobs in Texas last year and then announced layoffs of thousands of workers in the state, a Dallas Morning News review of government databases shows.

The applications with the U.S. Department of Labor and the layoff notices to the Texas Workforce Commission don't show whether the applications for foreign workers are for the same jobs that were cut. The companies reached by The News all declined to comment on the subject.

Visa requests with the Labor Department don't always translate into jobs, but the filings are the only way to check a company's intentions. Companies don't have to report how many foreign employees they have, and most don't give out those numbers.

The Labor Department said the number of H-1B requests each year is more than three times higher than the number of visas issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

But data provided by the agency shows that in North Texas, companies got visas for most of their initial requests in 2008.

Even so, companies don't always follow through on hiring.

ST Microelectronics, which has operations in North Texas, filed 21 permanent visa requests last year but wound up hiring only two people. "It's a very expensive approach for us to use visas to fill positions. If we can't find what we're looking for here, then we use a visa, but that's not our preferred method," said spokesman Mike Markowitz.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' filing fees are $320 for an H-1B visa and $475 for a permanent visa, also known as a "green card."

Last year, every one of the 65,000 H-1Bs and 20,000 specialty visas allotted by the government was requested on the first day of filing.


Magnet for criticism

More: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/033009dnentH1b-visas.3dce887.html

Treasonous Bastards. :mad:

[HillbillyBob]

1. Any one from TX here that can get a list of these jokes?

If we have a list we can call them or write them up and not just threaten to boycott. Promise to withhold all business from them.
I don't spend a lot of money on anything but absolute necessities, I did write to Levis, Hersheys, Wrangler, Hanes when they moved factories over seas and have not done any business with them since. fucking traitorous bast...ds.

[antigop]

6. Scroll down after the article...there are two lists (sorry don't have time to line up the numbers)

Visa requests by firms that announced layoffs

Company H-1B requests Permanent visa requests
AT&T 57 23
Bank of America 12 35
Cisco Systems 42 0
Countrywide 34 0
Dell 362 70
EDS 48 0
Ericsson 69 16
Hewlett-Packard 95 0
Nortel 87 0
ST Microelectronics 0 21
Sun Microsystems 13 0
Texas Instruments 290 12
SOURCES: Department of Labor; Dallas Morning News research


Layoffs by companies that requested worker visas
Company Announced job cuts
AT&T 78 jobs in Texas, 12,000 total
Bank of America 156 in Texas, 30,000-35,000 total
Cisco Systems 129 in Texas, 1,500-2,000 total
Countrywide Merged with Bank of America
Dell 1,900; additional unspecified cuts to come
EDS 29 in Texas; company merged with Hewlett-Packard
Ericsson 5,000 total
Hewlett-Packard 24,500 total
Nortel 5,000 total
ST Microelectronics 506 in Texas
Sun Microsystems 180 in Texas, 6,000 total
Texas Instruments 1,200 in Texas, 3,400 total
SOURCES: Texas Workforce Commission; Dallas Morning News research

[fasttense]

2. But some in the administration and the corporate world would like for you to believe that only

uneducated, poorly paid, employees are losing their jobs to foreign workers. I think this "more education will set you free" mantra is merely a diversion. If the hungry rabble are sent off to college (which is overpriced and underfunded) then we (government and corporations) can quietly give their jobs away. When they get out and can't find a job, we'll tell them they choose the wrong career path and send them off to borrow another $15,000 for re-education and retraining.

[OhioChick]

3. There is much truth to what you say. n/t

[ihavenobias]

4. There are FAR too many stories like this.

Far too many.

[bertman]

5. Where I live we have a couple of multi-story commercial buildings going up where there

are literally hundreds of hispanic workers making up 90% of the workers. Meanwhile, the residential building industry is at a standstill and thousands of Americans are laid off and businesses are going under.

We are a residential contracting firm and we hire only Americans or DOCUMENTED immigrants (currently we have only American citizens as employees). Our subcontractors, on the other hand, are almost exclusively hiring mostly UNDOCUMENTED immigrant workers. I was discussing this with one of our new subcontractors who is a business owner and asked him if he hires immigrant labor. He said that he hires hispanic workers because they are good workers. He said he would gladly hire Americans if he could find American workers who are honest, show up at work on time and every day, work hard, and don't come to work stoned or drunk. Sadly, this is a sentiment expressed by many of the business owners I know, and has also been our experience to a degree. We go to great pains to hire good workers with good references so we don't run into as many problems as some employers do.

This is not intended as a justification for hiring immigrant workers. It's simply an explanation for why so many are working here.

[ChromeFoundry]

7. I believe the article was referring to H-1B's and the tech industry. n/t