Good News for Smart Students - Caution to Employers

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Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC, produces a greatly weekly report on the service sector titled: "Wachovia's Weekly IT/BPO Service Monitor". Last Friday's report had this nugget on page 4:

"US Senators Durbin (D) and Grassley (R) sent letters on April 1st to the top 25 recipients of approved H-1B visa petitions in 2007 requesting detailed information on their use of visas (up to five years). The letters were sent to determine if the visas are being used for their intended purpose - to fill a worker shortage for a temporary time period. The 25 firms accounted for almost 20,000 of the 65,000 annual H-1B visas available. The timing of the letters coincides with the deadline for filing H-1B visa applications for the federal government’s FY09 (Sept.).

The letter was sent to the following companies: Infosys Technologies Ltd., Wipro Limited, Satyam Computer Services Ltd., Cognizant Tech Solutions, Microsoft Corporation, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Patni Computer Systems Inc., US Technology Resources LLC, I-Flex Solutions Inc., Intel Corporation, Accenture LLP, Cisco Systems Inc., Ernst & Young LLP, Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd., Deloitte & Touche LLP, Google Inc., Mphasis Corporation, University of Illinois at Chicago, American Unit Inc., Jsmn International Inc., Objectwin Technology Inc., Deloitte Consulting, Prince Georges County Public Schools, JPMorgan Chase and Co., and Motorola Inc."

When politicians send out information gathering letters, you can bet there's a tacit and a sub rosa context behind these. The tacit purpose behind these letters may be to identify how the H-1B program is working in practice. The unmentioned purpose may be to collect information that points to either a need for change, a call for reform or a means to whip public frenzy into a firestorm to the political advantage of someone other than the letter recipient. I would caution those receiving these letters to word their responses carefully and tread cautiously. Also, these firms should realize that if even one careless firm admits to a politically explosive practice, even a naive or innocent one, they could effectively tar the reputations of other firms also responding to this letter. Again, I'd be very careful with this one.

On a different note, the Department of Homeland Security has changed the rules for the number of months (now 17) a person with a student visa (F-1) and scarce skills can remain in the US while seeking employment. Please see this DHS announcement for full details: http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1207334008610.shtm