Skip to main content

Goodlatte Statement at Markup of the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act

November 15, 2017
Washington, D.C. – House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) today delivered the following remarks during the House Judiciary Committee’s markup of the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act (H.R. 170). Chairman Goodlatte: Some of you may have seen the “60 Minutes” episode a few months ago titled “You’re Fired.”  It reported that: Many businesses use the [H-1B temporary visa] program [for foreign professional workers] as intended, but we discovered more and more are taking advantage of loopholes in the law to fire American workers and replace them with younger, cheaper [ones]. But before the American workers walk out the door they often face the humiliating prospect of having to train the people taking their jobs.  Last October . . . a senior telecom engineer at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center . . . was called to a meeting at the university with about 80 of his IT co-workers.  [He says that he was told that] “We are sorry to inform you that . . . you'll no longer have a job. We’re going to outsource your position to [a] company in India.”  [He] was told he could stay on the job [and] get paid for four more months . . . if he trained his replacement.  [He said that] “It feels like not only am I digging [my] grave, but I’m getting ready to stab myself in the gut and fall in the grave.”     Oftentimes, unscrupulous employers intending to use the H-1B program to facilitate laying-off American workers don’t hire H-1B workers directly.  Instead, they contract for such workers from staffing companies that assist their clients in replacing American workers and often even send the work overseas. ​ Reports of these kinds of abuses of the H-1B program have a long history.  In fact, a quarter century ago, “60 Minutes” aired a very similar story.  Lesley Stahl reported that: When any American company needs programmers, the body shops can often deliver [H-1B] employees all the way from Bombay for rates that are so cheap, Americans just across town can't compete.  ​ ​This Committee came to similar conclusions two decades ago and passed Lamar Smith’s reform bill that led to the current requirements that “H-1B dependent” companies must 1) promise to recruit for American workers before seeking H-1Bs and offer jobs to qualified Americans who apply and 2) not lay-off American workers and replace them with H-1Bs. However, the version of the bill that eventually became law waived the recruitment and no lay-off requirements for H-1B dependent companies if they hired H-1B workers with advanced degrees or paid them at least $60,000. However, the $60,000 figure has never been adjusted for inflation.  In 1998, a $60,000 salary exceeded the average salary for information technology professionals -- for example, the average wage for computer engineers was $59,850. However, the average salary for computer and information research scientists is now $116,320, and 90% make more than $64,950.  Thus, the $60,000 salary floor now represents little more than half of the average wage in these occupations and the vast majority of American workers make far more. Further, the majority of H-1B workers now have advanced degrees, some of dubious quality. Thus, few H-1B dependent companies actually abide by the recruitment and no lay-off attestations that Congress designed to curtail their abuse of the program. Furthermore, under current law, the lay-off protection only protects an American worker for a period ending 90 days after their employer files an H-1B petition, but even that protection has been rendered meaningless. For a number of years now, the 85,000 annual allotment of H-1B visas has been exhausted in the first week visas become available.  Thus, since employers can file petitions six months before the start of a fiscal year, they all file in April of the previous year.  No H-1B worker subject to the cap actually starts work until long after the lay-off protection has expired. I want to congratulate Mr. Issa on his commitment to reinvigorate the Immigration and Nationality Act’s protections for American workers.  And I want to thank Ms. Lofgren for working constructively with Mr. Issa and me on the amendment in the nature of a substitute.  We will discuss the amendment further when Mr. Issa offers it, but at this point, let me just say that it will dramatically strengthen protections for American workers against H-1B-enabled lay-offs, will prevent H-1B dependent employers from undercutting the wages of American workers, and will give the Administration the ability to vigorously enforce these protections.  I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
###