Agriculture workers get preference over high skilled workers

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who has been relentlessly pushing the AgJobs bill since the CIR days, has introduced her puppy in the 110th Congress by itself. The bill plans to provide the previous illegals the Blue Card status for two periods of three years each. The Senate passed CIR bill of 2006 had these provisions in them and now they can't even wait for the bill to be re-introduced this year. Sounds a little surprising right? Well then here is the alarming part. Quietly worded in painstaking detail in the bill are provisions for their spouses to work too. This is an outright slap in the face of H-1B workers. Their spouses cannot work even if they have a Master's degree. Yet, spouses of former illegal aliens can now work legally? I'm not against their spouses working but does it sound fair on the thousands of spouses here legally on H4 visas?

The lack of legal work privileges for spouses of the skilled workers is why you see a majority of unmarried younger individuals on H-1B visas. Younger workers generally have lesser experience. Lesser experience means lesser starting salaries. This would then appear as if foreign workers are working for lesser pay than Americans. The anti-H1 groups then use this statistic to point out why they should restrict or stop the H1 visa program. This then causes the law makers to be extremely careful when enacting legislation, to not give too much away to the H1 workers. Not enabling spouses to work is one such restriction to prevent too many American jobs going to foreigners. Doesn't seem fair right? But that's how it is!