Eastern Iowa companies fear demise of work visa program

America's door to foreigners with high-tech skills is open just a crack, with the government approving about one-third of H-1B visa applications.

Companies have been lobbying to throw the door wide — or even just a little wider — to bring in more of these skilled workers, many from India and China.

But now, with the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, leaders of some Iowa companies fear the H-1B door will slam shut.

'It's no secret that the Trump administration has made it clear that it intends to scrap the H-1B program,' said Elizabeth Walder, senior vice president and chief sustainability officer for Integrated DNA Technologies, based in Coralville. 'It appears that the current challenging H-1B environment will become much worse if Trump follows through with his plans, and America will become less competitive in the international marketplace as a result.'

High-skill hires

H-1B visas are intended for people in specialty occupations requiring higher education. Congress caps the number of visas at 85,000 a year, with 20,000 of those reserved for people with a Master's degree or higher.

American companies submitted nearly 350,000 applications for H-1Bs for potential employees in fiscal 2015, according to a February report from Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A lottery decides which businesses get the visas.

'In the last few years, the visas have been depleted in a week,' said Rebecca Neades, vice president of public policy for the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce. 'We have had push back from our community. In particular, they'd like to see the number of H-1B visas raised.'

Rockwell Collins, a Cedar Rapids avionics, communications and information management systems company, hires about three percent of its 5,500 engineers with H-1B visas, according to spokesman Josh Baynes. This equates to about 165 people for Cedar Rapids' largest employer with about 8,000 employees locally and 20,000 worldwide.

'Increasingly the U.S. is moving away from industrial needs to an information economy,' said Stephen Schulz, director of talent acquisition at Rockwell. 'All of these companies are vying for the same type of employees.'

The challenge? American universities aren't graduating enough engineers, computer scientists and researchers to fill the demand of American businesses, Schulz said.

'Our universities and colleges are doing a great job, but there's not enough of them (engineers),' he said.

India and China, on the other hand, are churning out 'thousands and thousands' of computer-savvy grads — more than can be employed in those countries, Schulz said. Some of those top software engineers want to come to the United States, which is where H-1B visas enter the picture.

Applying for H-1B visas is costly — more than $2,000 in some cases — so it's unlikely employers would hire a foreign worker if they could find a qualified U.S. citizen, Schulz said.

'It's not a matter of us displacing American workers,' he said.

Abuse fueling backlash

But that's the suspicion of some Americans who believe they've been left behind by the information economy. Trump appealed to these voters with campaign-trail statements, calling H-1B a 'cheap labor program' to replace Americans for lower wages. At other times he said H-1B employees are 'talented people' welcome to work in the United States legally.

Trump's wife, Melania, who is a native of Slovenia, obtained an H-1B visa in 1996 to work as a fashion model.

There is growing evidence some companies have abused the H-1B process by hiring lower-paid contractors for IT jobs, leaving Americans, in some cases, to train their foreign replacements. Infosys Limited, an Indian company involved in consulting, technology and outsourcing, agreed in 2013 to pay a $34 million civil settlement based on allegations the company fraudulently used B-1 visa holders to perform jobs required to be done by U.S. citizens or H-1B visa holders, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Session, Trump's pick for attorney general, has decried the H-1B program for not requiring employers to document searching first for an American worker and allowing foreign hires to displace Americans. He sponsored legislation in 2015 that would have cut the number of H-1B visas available and given priority to companies offering higher-paid jobs.

Companies using H-1B legally to hire skilled workers don't want fraudsters derailing the program altogether.

'We're mostly in a wait-and-see mode for the next administration,' said Hass Machlab, president and CEO of Innovative Software Engineering, a 65-employee Coralville business sponsoring several engineers on H-1B visas. 'We're looking for talented people in technology. We want to do it in a way that is simple because we are a small company.'

Universities not subject to cap

Colleges and universities seeking foreign employees also must apply for H-1B visas, although they are not subject to the cap, said Deb Vance, Iowa State University's interim director of International Students and Scholars.

ISU is sponsoring 158 people with H-1B visas, with most working as assistant professors and postdoctoral students. Many of these foreign employees come to ISU from other academic institutions in the United States where they have completed advance degrees, Vance said.

'Iowa State advertises all our positions and chooses the best applicant for the job,' Vance said. 'In some cases, the best applicant is not a U.S. citizen.'

One of these hires is Shweta Chopra, an assistant professor in agricultural and biosystems engineering, who came to ISU in 2014 after finishing her Ph.D. at Purdue University.

'They searched a couple of times and failed before finding me,' said Chopra, a native of central India. 'That's why they hired me right out of graduate school.'

Chopra does research and teaches — passing on knowledge that will help Iowa students become tomorrow's high-skill employees. She has started the long and expensive process of applying for a green card to become a permanent resident.

The University of Iowa employs 199 people through H-1B visas, the majority as faculty, research scientists and postdocs in health-related fields, spokeswoman Jeneane Beck reported.

Chopra recently returned from a trip to India, passing through the Minneapolis airport with her family. They were told to go into a line for U.S. citizens because her daughter was born in the United States, Chopra said. Chopra was later scolded for being in the wrong line and the family was put in a detention area for an hour after their 36-hour trip.

'H-1B visa holders are not treated with respect oftentimes,' Chopra said.

But at ISU, it is different.

'We have so many international faculty, and everybody is treated with dignity.'

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