"You know something's up when Jack Kemp,         Spence Abraham and Bill Gates find themselves on         the same side of the barricades as Al Gore, Bob         Graham and the folks at the National Council of         La Raza," says the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page this morning (June 12, 2000). You         sure do: you know that the Anti-American Axis of         professional ethnics, cheap-labor hogs,         campaign-contribution whores, low-IQ libertarian         loonies, neocon nasties, fossilized Republican         publicists and New World Order nogoodniks that         has paralyzed the immigration debate is about to         launch its long-awaited Ardennes Offensive in         Washington, aimed at enacting a vast expansion         of H1-B "temporary" indentured-servant visas         under cover of the election.

Needless to say, the economic arguments         behind H1-B expansion are completely specious.         Labor economists are always skeptical when they         hear talk of labor "shortages." They ask:         "Shortages at what price?" Inexplicably, in         this area the Wall Street Journal Edit         Page seems suddenly to have lost its faith in         the price mechanism.

But at least it now admits, indeed proclaims,         that immigration policy is broke and needs         fixing. Its fix would make things worse. But it's         a start. Too bad the Wall Street Journal Edit Page has worked so hard to suppress other         attempts to point this out.

Suppression has been the order of the day in         this corrupt debate. But it's kind of hard to         suppress UC-Davis computer scientist Professor         Norm Matloff http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.html,         whose efforts to save his students from the         breadline have revealed him to be a formidable         natural polemicist. In this morning's email to         his supporters, he exposes a typical bit of Axis         black propaganda:

SPECIAL REPORT - FRADULENT TESTIMONY TO         SENATE

I know a lot of you receive a large amount of         e-mail, but you need to pay extra attention to         this one. Forgive me for writing in all-caps,         but the information here is that A HIGH-TECH         INDUSTRY CEO SUBMITTED *FRAUDULENT TESTIMONY* TO         THE SENATE IMMIGRATION SUBCOMMITTEE IN SUPPORT         OF RAISING THE H-1B CAP.

Many of you will remember womenConnect.com CEO Susan         deFife, poster woman for the industry         lobbyists. The lobbyists put her on the ABC         World News Tonight story just last week (June         6), for example, highlighting the H-1B she         hired. She highlighted the same H-1B in her         testimony to the Senate in October 1999, saying:

Last year, we spent months recruiting           for a systems administrator who has the           critical role of ensuring our content is           presented correctly and on time to our           audience. We were fortunate to           eventually find Noemi Nieto-Mendieta, a           young woman from Mexico who was           finishing coursework at a local           university. (Noemi is with me today.)

(http://www.senate.gov/~judiciary/102199sd.htm)

Now, I thought it would be interesting to         know just how much Ms. deFife is paying this         "rare worker" she sponsored for an         H-1B visa, so I took a look at Rob Sanchez's         online database of H-1B applications, which he         obtained under FOIA from the Dept. of Labor.         (This is the first time I used the database. I         must say it is an amazingly powerful tool.)

The database is at http://www.zazona.com/ShameH1B/.         Click on "H-1B

Visa Database," then enter Virginia for         the state and womenConnect.com for the company         name - and voila!, there is the entry for         deFife's H-1B.

(The database does not give names, but this         entry is the only one for womenConnect.com. The         year of hire is given as 1998, matching what         deFife testified, the job title matches, the         company name and place match. Rob assures me         that the database is complete for Virginia.)

So here it is: deFife hired this system         administrator for only $35,000!

Remember, she said that this woman was a new         graduate, and at that time (NACE survey, 3         months after the hire) new IT graduates were         being paid on average $45,000 for a Bachelor's         degree!

No wonder some of the industry lobbyists have         reportedly been pushing to remove a provision         from Rep. Lamar Smith's H-1B bill which would         set a floor of $40,000 for salary. The national         median IT salary is over $60,000, so setting a         $40K floor might seem rather toothless - it is         rather toothless, actually, but one can see why         the lobbyists' constituency like deFife even         object to a $40K floor.

In short, this is perhaps the worst outrage         I've seen in all the years

I've been following the H-1B issue. I knew         that some H-1Bs were being paid salaries as low         as this, but I never thought that a CEO         TESTIFYING ON THE MATTER WOULD SO BRAZENLY         MISLEAD THE SENATE. Here deFife is telling what         a dearth of IT workers we have, and yet she is         paying her "rare find" well below         average.

By the way, I just checked Ecutel,         another Virginia firm whose CEO has testified to         Congress in favor of raising the H-1B cap. I         already knew they were suspect, because a member         of my e-mail list who possessed the skills they         wanted applied to them, contacting them         repeatedly, and was never even given an         interview. The H-1B database shows them hiring         several H-1Bs in 1997 as software engineers at         salaries at the $35,000 level. That level would         have been below the average for new graduates,         and if they weren't new graduates, the gap would         be even bigger.

I hope that FAIR, NumbersUSA,         APG, AEA, IEEE-USA (!),         etc. really run with this one. The public may or         may not understand that a veteran programmer can         easily pick up a new language like Java, but the         public certainly can easily see that fraudulent         testimony - claiming a "desperate"         shortage while egregiously underpaying one's         workers - is an absolute disgrace.

Norm Matloff <matloff@cs.ucdavis.edu>

June 12, 2000