Lobbying
Techies Make Last-Minute Push For Visa Changes
by Heather Greenfield

     Busloads of technology company executives in town for an annual summer meeting of the tech group AeA arrived on Capitol Hill early Wednesday to talk to lawmakers about the immigration bill currently being debated on the Senate floor.
     AeA represents mostly small to mid-sized electronic and tech companies, and CEO Bill Archey said the timing for the visit, planned months ago, could not have worked out better because the bill, S. 1348, could get a final vote this week. Archey said the difficulty in getting H-1B visas for highly skilled immigrant workers disproportionately impacts smaller tech companies.

During the visits, Archey and tech company executives will be asking senators to support an amendment on that issue by Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and John Cornyn, R-Texas. The amendment would reserve 140,000 visas for employer-sponsored, merit-based green cards alongside the self-sponsored, merit-based points plan for immigrants already in the bill.
     Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who spoke to reporters Wednesday during a trip to Washington for a Business Software Alliance event, said he hoped to talk with key lawmakers about "how reform can at least be neutral if not positive for the [recruitment] issues we face so we're not forced into the position where we add more new jobs outside the U.S."
     In a letter to Cantwell and other Senate sponsors Tuesday, TechNet CEO Lezlee Westine and more than 40 tech executives expressed concern that just having the point system would take away employers' ability to identify the workers they want to hire.
     "We have significant concerns that the professionals who receive visas under this system may not possess the skills employers need," they wrote. "Your amendment addresses this problem by establishing a parallel employer-sponsored, merit-based system."
     Lowell Sachs, a government relations manager at Sun Microsystems, likened the point system to the government picking candidates for a blind date. Senate Republican Conference Chairman Jon Kyl of Arizona has said he understands that concern but argues that adding another 140,000 employer-based merit visas is a deal breaker for the overall bill.
     Kyl also has expressed concern about amendment language that would exempt from the H-1B visa cap foreign students with advanced degrees from U.S. universities, as well as those with degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics from foreign universities. Kyl has said the proposed H-1B visa increase from 65,000 to 115,000 under the bill would be enough.
     Sachs is not discouraged, saying that the "situation is very fluid. We're still trying to communicate the need for the Cantwell-Cornyn amendment as drafted."
     Nigel Ballard, the government marketing manager for Intel, is among the executives flown in for the AeA event. The immigration issue strikes home with the British-born employee because he just became a U.S. citizen two weeks ago. He had been able to work as a permanent resident alien for seven years because he married an American, and he sees himself as lucky not to have had to go through the visa system.
     "I'm pleased to be part of the team," Ballard said. "Now I get my FBI security clearance and I get a vote."