Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The guild's at it again!

Here's another attempt by the Programmer's Guild (PG) to malign the H1-B program. The U.S Department of Labor publishes certain information about all the H1/L1 visas it issued, like the name of the company, the salary being paid and the duration of work. As per the high standards of processing at the Dept. of Labor (snicker!) they release this once a year at the end of the fiscal year which is every September.

Now PG is demanding that the Dept. of Labor should publish data for fiscal year 2007 immediately?! Are they kidding?!! I think they need to research the processing efficiency at the Dept. of Labor before they dream about things like this. Heck, the Dept. of Labor hasn't even finished entering Labor Certification application data they received in 2000, they were so inefficient that after repeated demands from the applicants they had to create backlog processing centers. Now PG wants faster access to the data for 2007?. Lol!

Without some serious overhaul or investments, they can't achieve this. If they do decide to invest, who is gonna pay for this additional cost? The fees charged for the application which is over $2000 for an H1 visa fund the program and some more, where is the extra money to speed up the process going to come from? The applicants don't need it fast. It's PG who needs it.

The normal H1 processing takes about 2-3 months. Even after processing is complete it takes until the next fiscal year before the applicant can get a visa if the visas are used up. PG wants this time frame for U.S. applicants to apply for those jobs. What they conveniently forget is that U.S. companies don't hire foreigners if they can get a U.S. worker they like. The months long waits plus high costs of application and legal fees is a definite deterrent unless the company feels strongly about a certain foreign applicant. In such cases, I can't see how they will recruit someone with lower skills or brain power.

Most of the people who are still unemployed , displaced or under-employed (I like how they come up with nice words for stupid wannabe programmers) are of lower quality who mostly just swarmed into IT during the boom times of the late 90s and were quickly gone once the market went bust. I've heard about carpenters and construction workers move into IT without even a Bachelor's degree in IT or related fields. These people should never have been in IT in the first place and it was the labor shortage that allowed them to get into IT.

So, other than making up more work for the Dept. of Labor I don't see any benefits from these demands by PG.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

August 2006 Visa Bulletin

Every month around the 15th day, the U.S. Dept. of State, releases the visa bulletin which lists who can avail of a visa number next month to adjust status to permanent residency. This bulletin breaks down the numbers based on the category and also seperates out over-subscribed countries from the rest of the world. When you apply for permanent residency you get a case number and a priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the visa bulletin for your application category, USCIS will proceed with your case and in most cases you will get your permanent resident card in a few months. Here are the cut-off dates for employment-based permanent residency categories from the August 2006 visa bulletin:
For an analysis of the visa bulletin visit Murthy.com

For persons born in India:
CategoryCut-off DateMovement from previous month
EB101 Jan 2006No change
EB2UnavailableNo one can file under this category
EB301 Apr 2001Moved back by 14 days

For persons born in China:

CategoryCut-off DateMovement from previous month
EB1CurrentNo change
EB201 Mar 2005No change
EB301 Oct 2001No change

For persons born in Phillipines:
CategoryCut-off DateMovement from previous month
EB1CurrentNo change
EB2CurrentNo change
EB301 Oct 2001No change

For persons born in Mexico:
CategoryCut-off DateMovement from previous month
EB1CurrentNo change
EB2CurrentNo change
EB322 Apr 2001No change

For rest of the world:
CategoryCut-off DateMovement from previous month
EB1CurrentNo change
EB2CurrentNo change
EB301 Oct 2001No change

Most IT related applicants would fall under EB3. That's backlogged by 5 years now for applicants born in India.

Monday, July 17, 2006

US 'could be going bankrupt'

As most of us immigrate to the U.S. for its superior life style, The Telegraph has a report on how the U.S. might be in for bankruptcy according to research conducted by Boston University Professor Laurence Kotlikoff
According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy."
Most of you may know that the U.S. government prints money based on selling U.S. Treasury bonds to foreign investors one of the biggest of which is the Chinese government.
The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.
What this means is that inflation and a depreciating dollar may burn out all your savings 10 to 20 years from now as you are getting ready to retire. At that point there may not be a lot of difference between what you have and what your friend who is in your home country has in terms of wealth.

CIR bill is dead

It's not official but as I had feared the comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) bill is dead and buried as the House has not yet come up with the list of members for the conference committee let alone a decision on the bill itself. This is another side of politics where with elections for the House seats in November there is not enough political will power to pass a controversial bill. No politician wants to get caught on the wrong side during election time. So they will let the bill die as the summer session comes to an end and experts believe the bill may come up again late this year or early next year once the elections are through. Meanwhile all the legal immigrants waiting for green cards can enjoy the rest of the summer and continue waiting.