While public discourse over federal immigration reform has focused on undocumented aliens seeking legal status in the U.S., lost in that raging debate is the fact that the proposed legislation would also increase the annual allotment of H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers looking to gain entry into this country. Though that topic is almost an aside on the national agenda, it is of major interest and concern to high-tech companies–including a number of visual effects and CG studios–that contend H-1Bs are crucial to their business.
Currently there is an annual allotment of 65,000 H-1B visas for the upcoming fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2007-Sept. 30, ’08). When the application process opened up for these visas this spring, there were some 200,000 petitions filed in the first two days with U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services for those 65,000 available visas
As chronicled in SHOOT over the years. H-1Bs have been used by assorted high-tech firms, including a number of visual effects and computer animation houses, that rely on foreign labor to help make up for what they claim is a shortage of highly qualified American artisans.
The current Senate bill on immigration reform proposes an increase in the annual cap from 65,000 to a base of 115,000–with the potential to rise further to some 180,000 subject to various conditions.
Indeed H-1B visas have ridden a numbers roller coaster over the years. In fiscal year ’97-’98, the cap on such visas was 65,000. That went up to 115,000 in ’98-’99 and then to 195,000 for fiscal years ’00-’01, ’01-’02 and ’02-’03. The Silicon Valley-centered tech boom in the late ’90s fueled a vigorous industry lobbying campaign which led to legislation that upped the yearly H-1B allocation to 115,000 and then to 195,000.
However, that latter legislation expired in ’03, causing the annual cap to revert back to its current 65,000. And while the Bush administration has long supported an increase of the allotment, Congress had not pursued it vigorously in light of concerns over terrorism–and that was even when Congress was Republican controlled. Additionally, bringing in foreign workers for U.S. employment, combined with the outsourcing of jobs to other countries, carries potentially negative political baggage for legislators.
But the window has now opened for overall reform in federal immigration as it applies to undocumented people from other countries–and on those coattails have come provisions that apply to H-1B visas.
Soft figure
Whether an increase in H-1Bs is truly needed remains to be seen. For one, newly available figures show that the 65,000 cap is a soft number. In ’05, the most recent year for which visa data are available, the U.S. approved nearly 117,000 H-1B visas due to a series of exemptions and regulations. On the latter score, for instance, the first 20,000 H-1B applications filed for any masters’ degree candidate or higher do not count against the quota of 65,000. In terms of exemptions, foreigners hired to work at universities, nonprofit research institutions or government laboratories also don’t count against the cap.
Those opposed to raising the cap from its so-called 65,000 limit cite these exemptions and rules, contending that more than enough skilled foreign workers already have access to U.S. employment. Furthermore, those in opposition to increasing the cap contend that there are many U.S. tech workers seeking jobs who are qualified but lose out on opportunities taken up by those with H-1B visas.
On the flip side, major high-tech firms argue that the current law doesn’t let them hire enough foreign-born workers in fields like info technology where unemployment levels are quite low. In the tech sector, companies such as Microsoft are lobbying hard for access to more qualified foreign workers, claiming that there are not enough American workers to meet industry demand.
However, if this is the case, many counter that legislators should be more concerned with education and training. For example, some harbor hope that a ramping up of funding for math and science education will take hold, helping to make the future American workforce more competitive in the global market. The general consensus is that the long-term solution to the alleged high-tech U.S. workforce shortfall is education from the grass-roots elementary school level on up through high school and advanced training curriculum. This encompasses not only math and science but also arts education in that much of the tech sector–including visual effects and animation–needs a talent base that’s savvy both technologically and in the creative arts.
Raoul Peck Resurrects A Once-Forgotten Anti-Apartheid Photographer In “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”
When the photographer Ernest Cole died in 1990 at the age of 49 from pancreatic cancer at a Manhattan hospital, his death was little noted.
Cole, one of the most important chroniclers of apartheid-era South Africa, was by then mostly forgotten and penniless. Banned by his native country after the publication of his pioneering photography book "House of Bondage," Cole had emigrated in 1966 to the United States. But his life in exile gradually disintegrated into intermittent homelessness. A six-paragraph obituary in The New York Times ran alongside a list of death notices.
But Cole receives a vibrant and stirring resurrection in Raoul Peck's new film "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found," narrated in Cole's own words and voiced by LaKeith Stanfield. The film, which opens in theaters Friday, is laced throughout with Cole's photographs, many of them not before seen publicly.
As he did in his Oscar-nominated James Baldwin documentary "I Am Not Your Negro," the Haitian-born Peck shares screenwriting credit with his subject. "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found" is drawn from Cole's own writings. In words and images, Peck brings the tragic story of Cole to vivid life, reopening the lens through which Cole so perceptively saw injustice and humanity.
"Film is a political tool for me," Peck said in a recent interview over lunch in Manhattan. "My job is to go to the widest audience possible and try to give them something to help them understand where they are, what they are doing, what role they are playing. It's about my fight today. I don't care about the past."
"Ernest Cole: Lost and Found" is a movie layered with meaning that goes beyond Cole's work. It asks questions not just about the societies Cole documented but of how he was treated as an artist,... Read More