US IT firms fight for immigration bill

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Even as the immigration overhaul bill collapsed late last week with the US Congress declining to increase the numbers of H1B visa for immigrant workers, IT majors in America are now geared to fight against the decision.

According to agency reports, these companies had been pushing for changes to the immigration bill in the Senate to make it easier to hire foreign IT and other skilled professionals before the compromise measure collapsed.

The US IT majors cite the shortage of skilled IT professionals in the country and insisted that the bill could have been amended before it was shelved once in for all.

Some companies say that top-notch professionals, such as Google co-founder Sergey Brin, is an immigrant himself.

Microsoft alone requires 3000 professionals and same is the case at other companies such as Oracle and others.

Some companies also propound the idea of having exemptions such as major sports leagues being allowed to lure foreign sportspeople with special skills.

Critics of the H1B visa opine that the bull is sued to depress wages in the IT sector, with the hiring of engineers from India and other Asian nations, and add that the evidence of manpower-shortage was not entirely clear.

In the case of the bill not being passed and the requirement of skilled IT professionals also increasing on the other hand, the IT majors will have no other option of relocating the works offshore. This will inevitably defeat the very essence of the US senators ‘wish’ to safeguard the rising unemployment within their country.