In a message dated 4/5/08 2:30:07 A.M. Central Daylight Time, News@JobDestruction.info writes:

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER  No. 1849 -- 4/04/2008 >>>>>

You might be surprised to find out that the H-1B system can be expanded by
a bureaucratic decree -- and no politician will be held accountable. It can
be done with a simple edict by the Dept. of Homeland Security.

In this scenario the number of foreign students who graduate from US
universities that can stay in the U.S. until they find jobs will
dramatically increase. Congress will sit on their thumbs in order to evade
responsibility. This can happen because the Department of Homeland Security
is proposing to change a regulation that would allow the Optional Practical
Training program to increase from 12 months to 29 months. This is a
de-facto expansion of the H-1B visa program because it allows students to
work in the U.S. for more than twice as many months until they get an H-1B
visa. In air traffic terminology, the foreign students are put on a holding
pattern until they get an H-1B visas.

So just why do the "best and brightest" minds in the world need more time
to find jobs? Shouldn't they be able to find jobs way before graduation if
they were as smart as the promoters of this regulatory change claim? The
answer of course is that they are the cheapest minds in the global
marketplace, not the best or brightest.

The OPT expansion is a stab in the back to all American students who are
toiling to get their engineering or science degrees, but of course most
young students are too clueless to understand what is going on, so don't
expect their brainwashed minds to ever comprehend how their future careers
are being undermined. They will probably wonder why they can't seem to get
internships, but they will be unlikely to figure out that they are being
swept aside for foreign students on OPT work authorizations.

In case you are wondering what these foreign students will do with their
extra time, read the second article on the Princeton web site called,
"Learning to grind with American girls".

Guess who gave a Congressional testimony that called for this increase in
the OPT time period? None other than Bill Gates!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/25/46/35.html

Homeland Agency May Expand High-Skill Foreign Student Stay

A preliminary regulation would extend the time that foreign graduates in
science, technology, engineering or mathematics can work for a U.S. company
without obtaining a visa. This plan would give them a greater opportunity
to obtain an H-1B visa.

April 4, 2008
Homeland Agency May Expand High-Skill Foreign Student Stay
In an effort to help companies hire and retain more highly skilled foreign
nationals who graduate from U.S. universities, the Department of Homeland
Security is proposing to expand a program that would allow them to stay in
the country longer after receiving their degrees.

On Friday, April 4, the agency announced a preliminary regulation extending
the time that foreign graduates in science, technology, engineering or
mathematics can work for a U.S. company without obtaining a visa.

That will give them a greater opportunity to secure an H-1B visa, which is
for people who have at least the equivalent of a U.S. bachelor’s degree.
The H-1B cap is likely to be exceeded again this year, forcing spring
graduates to wait until next April to apply.

H-1B opponents criticized the DHS proposal.More criticism may be generated
by a condition in the regulation that mandates that only companies using
E-Verify, a government-run electronic verification system, can participate.

The Society for Human Resource Management and many other HR groups assert
that E-Verify is inefficient, error-prone and could potentially designate
many legal workers as ineligible for employment. They are promoting a bill
that would establish an alternative verification system.

The new DHS regulation is subject to a 60-day comment period. Then DHS can
promulgate a final rule. It’s unclear whether the process can be
concluded before the end of the Bush administration.

Under the regulation, the Optional Practical Training program would
increase from 12 months to 29 months. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates called
for such a reform in congressional testimony last month, saying that hiring
and retaining foreign-national graduates is critical to helping technology
companies innovate.

The push for a longer training program is the result of a shortage of H-1B
visas. For the last fiscal year, companies sent in 123,000 applications for
65,000 H-1B visas, exceeding the cap on the first day they were available,
April 2.

Under current law, if a foreign-national hire doesn’t get an H-1B visa
within 12 months, he or she must leave the United States.

For the 2009 fiscal year, the cap is set again at 65,000, and an even
greater demand is expected. DHS may announce as soon as Monday, April 7,
that the cap has been exceeded and that the visas will be distributed by
lottery.

The move to expand the training initiative may ease the disappointment of
companies, especially in the technology sector, who say they can’t fill
high-skill jobs.

"It’s a good first step," says Robert Hoffman, vice president of
government and public affairs for Oracle and co-chair of Compete America.
"The administration has clearly recognized through this action that there
is a severe skills shortage in this economy."

Hoffman says that there are 140,000 openings at S&P 500 companies for
engineers, scientists and other highly skilled professionals.

But he warned that the DHS regulation alone is not enough. Congress must
increase the number of H-1B and permanent work visas, or green cards. Bills
to do so are mired in a political stalemate on immigration reform.

If Congress doesn’t act, "you’re going to create one heck of a
bottleneck," Hoffman says. "You’re going to find (that many) more highly
skilled individuals are forced to leave the country."

Opponents of the H-1B program contend that it displaces U.S. workers and
depresses wages. They also criticize the training program expansion.

"It’s completely unnecessary," says John Miano, a Summit, New Jersey,
lawyer and computer consultant who founded the Programmers Guild. "Student
visas are not supposed to be the gateway to immigration, but they’re
being transformed into that."

Outsourcing companies from India obtain many H-1B visas in order to send
foreign workers to the United States who ultimately take jobs away from
U.S. applicants, Miano says.

Data on the impact of H-1Bs doesn’t exist, and Department of Labor
enforcement is limited, according to Miano.

"No one knows what’s going on in the system," he says. "There is no
ability to investigate these things."

But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff promoted the extension of
the training program as a way to bolster the U.S. economy.

"This rule will enable businesses to attract and retain highly skilled
foreign workers, giving U.S. companies a competitive advantage in the world
economy," he said in a statement.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/03/27/20559/

Learning to grind with American girls

By Zoe Buck
Staff Writer
Published: Thursday, March 27th, 2008
Correction appended

When Plamen Ivanov '08 first came to the United States from Pleven,
Bulgaria, four years ago, he was surprised by the pink polos that
Princetonians wore and by how the students interacted. "I guess I had a
different idea of what cool was," he said. But the most shocking thing to
him was the way the Americans danced. "Grinding was by far the hardest
thing for me to get used to," Ivanov said. "I still don't understand it. So
kissing your lady friends on the cheek when hugging them is kind of sketchy
and sleazy, but grinding with them on the Street is totally fine?"

There are 470 undergraduates that the Office of Admission categorizes as
"international students." They hail from 91 different countries and make up
about 10 percent of a given class. These students have to face the same
stresses and difficulties as their American counterparts, but they also
have to deal with immigration forms, long distances separating them from
friends and family, and strange American traditions - like grinding.

Though the Office of the Dean of International Students typically only
deals with immigration issues, the pre-orientation program it sponsors
every fall tackles the potential difficulties of interpreting American
social customs. A counselor addresses the students, explaining among other
things that Americans tend to be friendly and animated even if they have no
interest in actually fostering a friendship or a romance. They require more
personal space during friendly interactions than is typical in many other
countries and prefer to shake hands rather than kiss on the cheek. Some
social norms that mean certain things in Europe or Africa may mean
something totally different in America.

This year will be the first time that international students will be
allowed to both attend the international pre-orientation and participate in
a Community or Outdoor Action trip. Dean of International Students Rachel
Baldwin said she hopes that this will help them branch out and integrate
themselves into the Princeton community. "[International] students are
drawn toward enclaves of other international students, which is natural,"
she said. Pre-orientation gives them a taste of the community and general
cultural differences, but facing challenges with American freshmen right
off the bat will help to blur the lines that divide international students
from the rest of their class.

"I guess I did seek out groups of international students," said Bronson
Fung '08, a native of Hong Kong. "We all did. It made it easier for us,
especially in the beginning because we can relate to each other."

In his first three years, Ivanov found himself hanging out mostly with
Bulgarians or other kids from the pre-university school he attended, United
World College (UWC) of the Adriatic. The school has 11 other campuses
around the globe. Many international students at Princeton - including
Ivanov and Fung - attended UWC, in large part thanks to the Shelby Davis
Scholarship, which pays 100 percent of the demonstrated financial need of
UWC graduates attending Princeton.

Though Ivanov lives with two other UWC-ers, most of the other Bulgarian
students he knows have graduated, and he has branched out this year. "I
think I have integrated very well in the past few years," he said.
"Break-dancing with Sympoh has helped a lot. I wanted to make more American
friends, but I did not really understand their party logic."

Despite funds like the Davis Scholarship, at least a quarter of
international students remain on campus during a given break. "There are
some students who are very privileged, and some students who really are
not, and traveling home can just be horribly expensive," Baldwin explained.
In some cases the time it takes to travel home and back to Princeton during
a weeklong break would leave less than a day to spend at home. It takes
Kieran Ledwidge '08 20 hours to get home to Sydney, Australia, and once
there the time difference is 15 hours ahead. That's a net loss of a day and
a half.

Ivanov said he doesn't mind the distance, though he would like to return to
Bulgaria some day. "What challenges do I face? I guess my accent is the
main thing. People say it's cool, but probably they think I'm stupid or
something, or a criminal," he noted. But being exotic can also be an asset.
"Everyone tells me American girls love accents," Ledwidge joked.

Not all international students find it hard to blend in. Take Delwin Olivan
'08 for example, who is from Vancouver, B.C., and lives less than an hour
from the United States border. "Being from Canada is like getting none of
the perks of being an international student but with all of the
annoyances," he said. "We still get that little extra check when coming in
here with our I-20s and have to deal with all the bureaucracy, but we don't
take advantage of the resources offered to international students on campus
because we don't really need them." Baldwin knows that it is hard for
American students to understand Canadians as international students. "In
terms of immigration, however, they have to deal with all the same issues,"
she said.

And immigration issues loom large. All seniors struggle with the question
of what they will be doing after graduation, but international seniors need
to decide quickly enough to begin the bureaucracy of making it happen.
"There is so much visa drama right now in the room," said Joe Rokicki '08,
an American who lives with three international students in a Spelman suite.
"It's all anyone can talk about. Visa this, visa that."

Every international undergraduate gets something called an OPT (Optional
Practical Training). The OPT extends their time allowed in the United
States by exactly 12 months, time they can use to work. The 12 months can
be used at any time during their four years here. Many students use a good
part of their OPT for summer internships between semesters. Those who wish
to stay in the United States after graduation save as many months of their
OPT as possible to linger in the states for a year after graduation. "I
want to use the rest of my OPT to get a job in New York. But until I get a
work visa, I won't be able to leave the country with any assurance that
they'll let me back in to work - despite having time left on my OPT,"
Ledwidge explained.

The prospect of all this can be very daunting. "Will you marry me?"
Ledwidge joked. "It would make my life so much easier, I can't even tell
you."

CORRECTION:

The orginal version of this article stated that the Shelby Davis
Scholarship allows any UWC graduate to attend to Princeton on a full ride,
regardless of need. In fact, the scholarship award is based on financial
need, though it is still available to any UWC alumnus at Princeton. The
Daily Princetonian regrets this error. 


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