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 NEWSThe lure home By Eriq Gardner November 30, 2001 ON A LATE AUGUST afternoon above a suburban Los Angeles beach, five small jets cruised through mildly overcast skies to deliver a plea. Anyone with his or her head arched upward at that moment could unmistakably read the message being skywritten in air: "Back to Germany," along with a Web site, "move-back.com." The message stayed in the air for approximately 45 minutes and then suffered the same fate that all skywriting eventually succumbs to -- it faded.
In mid-August, Mangold contacted the site's backers, the Economic Development Corporation of Stuttgart, Germany, who told him that the plan was to bring thousands of German expatriates home. The first two weeks of the campaign, move-back.com attracted 250,000 visitors. One hundred job applications were submitted as a result. What a difference a few years makes. Three years ago, American companies in the midst of a severe IT worker shortage, which by some counts numbered close to 1 million openings, successfully pressured Congress to raise the cap on H-1B visas (the type reserved for "specialty occupations") from its previous limit of 65,000 to 115,000 foreign professionals per year. In 2000, the cap was increased to 195,000 visas. Thousands of foreigners, perhaps hoping for a new American dream and streets paved with dot-com gold, took advantage of these corporate open arms by coming to the United States. They came to work for companies more than willing to pay the $1,000 visa fee, along with attorney's fees, relocation costs, and the subsequently expensive "green card" or permanent residence sponsorships. Critics in the IT worker community and some prominent political leaders including former Labor Secretary Robert Reich argued at that time that the H-1B visa solution was merely a temporary fix. They also put forth that American political leaders were bowing to corporate pressure by taking in the huddled masses instead of focusing on the homegrown American talent just waiting to be trained. After the stock market crashed in April 2000, and as companies felt the winds of an economic downturn and started laying off workers, new grumbles arose: Companies were being more protective of their H-1B workers. Critics including the AFL-CIO charged that companies were laying off American-born workers first, instead of discharging H-1B employees. But as dismissals continue everywhere, it is harder to argue that the H-1B classes are getting special protection. Many foreign professionals are finding themselves out of jobs, in the cross fire of some pent-up frustration by their peers and, perhaps worst of all, old dreams of striking it rich in America gone bust. Treatment stateside Recent studies of how H-1B employees are faring have not been particularly flattering to U.S. employers. A 2000 report by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, for example, places the median income of H-1B visa professionals at $53,000, compared to the national average of $66,000. In addition, employers now find themselves in a buyer's market, an atmosphere that some, most notably Norman Matloff at The University of California, Davis, charge has encouraged corporations to behave unfairly. "Many employers in 2001 stopped offering the H-1Bs green cards altogether," says Matloff, who testified at congressional hearings on the issue. "There were so many excess foreign workers available that employers who wished to hire foreigners could afford to not offer green cards." Foreign professionals who have lost work due to cutbacks certainly find themselves in dire straits. Current immigration law allows for only a 10-day grace period for laid-off foreign workers to find another company willing to assume responsibility on the visa. Once the 10 days are up, the immigrant can either petition the INS for a grace period beyond the 10 days or have his or her former employer fulfill the last lawful duty of the H-1B terms of employment -- buy the worker a one-way plane ticket back home. The Internet is littered with stories of immigrants mistreated at the hands of corporations, and the Immigration Support Network, a lobbying group of primarily Indian IT workers, is documenting some of these cases. This includes the tale of Biswajit De, a 28-year-old H-1B visa holder from Calcutta, India, who was allegedly recruited by JBAS Systems, a 6-year-old Santa Clara, Calif.-based recruiting company, with promises of landing a $55,000 salary. According to De, not only did JBAS fail to pay him adequately, but they threatened to have him deported when he interviewed for jobs on his own. "I don't have a single pay stub from them," De told the Immigration Support Network. "I have been on the bench since the day I came, and I have interviewed for only one job through JBAS. How am I supposed to survive?" A representative from JBAS turned down requests for an interview. No more brain drain Certainly, the United States has become somewhat hostile territory for recent immigrants, employed or unemployed in the tech-business arena, and many companies and townships across the globe are taking notice. This includes the Economic Development Corporation of Stuttgart, a region comprising 179 communities between Munich and the Black Forest. The EDC is on a $150,000, three-month advertising campaign, taking out ads on many popular Web sites, as well as sending jet planes above Manhattan's skyline and Los Angeles beaches with its "Back to Germany" message. Stuttgart has long been a region known for its engineering prowess, specifically in transportation. Porsche, Bosch, DaimlerChrysler, and Mercedes Benz operate in the area. In addition, the region hosts many technical institutes and engineering schools. According to Arndt Sipemann, spokesman for the Move Back campaign, the region is best described by the German phrase musterlaendle, which means both innovation and a kind of clean, conservative lifestyle. "The old joke ... is that people in Stuttgart are the type of people who have huge Benzes in small garages," Sipemann says. But a German economic recession in the early 1990s was particularly tough on the region. Many students interested in engineering and information technology turned to greener pastures, namely America. According to German labor statistics, 120,000 German citizens with "specialized skills" leave Germany each year; 50,000 of those go to America. Today, as incredible as it may seem considering the global economic circumstances, the Economic Development Corporation of Stuttgart says the region has more than 4,000 IT specialist openings. Which brings us back to America, where Arndt Sipemann has been handling hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from those tempted to end, as the EDC Web site delicately put it, "the adventure of the new economy." Unfortunately for the EDC, they launched their campaign -- planes flying and all -- at precisely the wrong moment. In October 2001, the decision was made to suspend the campaign for the time being. Move-back.com now reads: "The sponsors of this site are sensitive to the unfolding catastrophe in the United States, and feel the original focus, tonality, and message of this campaign were no longer appropriate under these difficult circumstances." Still, says Sipemann, he continues to get calls from people, some of whom lost jobs during the layoff period post-Sept. 11th. "People who have lost opportunities [in the United States] are calling," Sipemann says. "They don't want to be considered losers." Eriq Gardner is a freelance writer in New York. Contact him at eriqgardner@aol.com.  Immigration numbers Applications and petitions for immigration benefits in September 2001 were down from September 2000, according to the INS.
Source: Immigration and Naturalization Service RELATED ARTICLES  Forums: Insight on H-1B visasEconomic slowdown affects H-1BsH-1B after the attackRELATED SUBJECTS Professional DevelopmentSPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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