Silicon Implants

THIS is an age of specialization. So perhaps we should not be surprised that the market has called forth an employment agency offering to find the U.S. software industry able young employees trained in the latest skills, to bring them in from abroad at bargain-basement prices, to secure them proper “guest worker” credentials, and to arrange matters so that they cannot accept a better offer from another company for a period of six years. The name of this agency, however, is not the Software Indentured Service Agency or SISA, but the congressional Republicans (whom it is tempting but probably unwise to call “Sissies” for short).

The mechanism whereby the SISA Republicans hope to achieve these ends is a bill that would increase the number of H-1B “temporary” visas for skilled workers from 65,000 to 115,000 annually. It has already passed the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House subcommittee; it is expected to pass both Houses by mid June at the latest. And why not? It has the support of most Senate Republicans, in particular of Senator Spencer Abraham of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, of the House GOP leadership, of the politically (and financially) influential software industry, of the Wall Street Journal, and of those conservatives who lose their critical faculties when they hear words like “high-tech” and “globalization.”

About the Author

John O’Sullivan

John O’Sullivan is a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

Featured Tags

THIS is an age of specialization. So perhaps we should not be surprised that the market has called forth an employment agency offering to find the U.S. software industry able young employees trained in the latest skills, to bring them in from abroad at bargain-basement prices, to secure them proper “guest worker” credentials, and to arrange matters so that they cannot accept a better offer from another company for a period of six years. The name of this agency, however, is not the Software Indentured Service Agency or SISA, but the congressional Republicans (whom it is tempting but probably unwise to call “Sissies” for short).

The mechanism whereby the SISA Republicans hope to achieve these ends is a bill that would increase the number of H-1B “temporary” visas for skilled workers from 65,000 to 115,000 annually. It has already passed the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House subcommittee; it is expected to pass both Houses by mid June at the latest. And why not? It has the support of most Senate Republicans, in particular of Senator Spencer Abraham of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, of the House GOP leadership, of the politically (and financially) influential software industry, of the Wall Street Journal, and of those conservatives who lose their critical faculties when they hear words like “high-tech” and “globalization.”