Promoting Electrotechnology Careers and Public Policy

May 10, 2000

The Honorable Trent Lott
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Lott,

Soon you will vote on whether to blow the lid off the NON-immigrant H-1B visa program for skilled foreign workers. Despite inside-the-Beltway lobbying to the contrary, this erodes the real interests of the IT industry. On behalf of the 230,000 U.S. members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Association of Engineering Societies (whose members represent a million engineers) and the Immigration Reform Coalition, I urge you to vote for green cards, not guest worker visas when you debate this legislation. Look at the facts:

• Virtually all H-1B visa holders want permanent residency - as much as 70% were using the H-1B as a stepping stone to green cards just a few years ago;

• Each year, 50,000 to 80,000 employment-based green cards go begging, while H-1B visas run out;

• More than 85% of the H-1B workers brought in by this legislation will NOT be able to obtain permanent residency before their "temporary" visas expire, which means that as many as 1 million will overstay their visas as third-class "permatemp aliens"; and finally

• Unless amended to fix the green card system, the pending H-1B bills will sever the connection between immigration and citizenship that depends on permanent residency.

Enclosed you will find materials to document these facts. The Open Letter to Congress is signed by the dot.com elite: Linus Torvalds, inventor of the Linux operating system; Steve Wozniak, educator and co-founder of Apple Computer; Esther Dyson, President of Edventure Holdings; and dozens of the IT industry's leading entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of International Migration recently assessed the H-1B program, and its conclusions are devastating. Like it or not, the votes you will soon cast on this obscure temporary admissions category will determine whether the United States remains a land of immigrants in the 21st century, or becomes a land of guest workers and permatemps.

Please examine the enclosed materials, including IEEE-USA's proposals for reform, and vote for green cards, not guest worker visas.

Sincerely

Merrill W. Buckley, Jr.
2000 IEEE-USA President

(Note:  Same Letter sent to all members of the U.S. Senate)

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Last Update:10 May 2000
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