The American economy is currently purring along at effective full employment. That's good news, of course. But it's a problem, too, in this respect: In certain occupational categories -- relatively well-paid, high-tech positions in particular -- there are now more jobs available than there are American workers qualified to do them. What can American companies do to fill spot labor shortages like these, and thus continue contributing to economic expansion? Simple: They can hire high-skilled foreign nationals on a temporary basis.
Except when they can't. And they can't right now; federal policy won't allow it. Immigration law caps the number of work-related "H-1B" visas for high-skilled foreign nationals at 65,000 each fiscal year. Halfway through fiscal 1998, this year's quota has already been reached. If it isn't lifted, at least 30,000 U.S.-based jobs (and the production and tax revenue they would generate) will wither.
Last Monday, we're pleased to report, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill to correct this anomaly. The "American Competitiveness Act," proposed by Sen. Spencer Abraham of Michigan, would raise the number of visas for high-skilled workers to 95,000 annually for a period of six years, beginning immediately. Ted Kennedy and the AFL-CIO, who had sought to attach cripplingly restrictive amendments to the legislation, were beaten. And the bill passed with a resounding bipartisan 78-20 final vote.
Two days later, however, something peculiar happened to the House of Representatives' version of this bill. The Judiciary Committee reported it to the floor, complete with Kennedy-like pro-union restrictions -- only worse.
And which of the committee's Democrats was able to sneak these Big Labor provisions through? None of them, actually. The culprit was the infamously immigration-phobic Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas and chairman of Judiciary's immigration subcommittee. Smith's provisions neuter the bill. Will the House leadership reverse Smith's machinations and save the Abraham bill, or does Ted Kennedy have a new set of allies in the Republican House?