On Wednesday, 140 House Republicans, 224 House Democrats, and Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) — led by Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) — voted to allow Indian nationals to effectively monopolize the U.S. green card system for at least ten years, providing a constant stream of foreign workers that American professionals will be forced to compete against for white-collar jobs.
In response, Amazon executives released a statement thanking Republicans and Democrats for their support:
Thank you to @RepZoeLofgren and the 311 House cosponsors for supporting the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act. #HR1044263
The Indian outsourcing lobby, including Cognizant Technology Solutions, which has to import tens of thousands of foreign workers through the H-1B visa to replace Americans, and tech conglomerates like Microsoft Corp lobbied Republicans and Democrats hard to pass the legislation, known as HR. 1044.
The bill changes existing immigration law that prevents one country from monopolizing the U.S. green card system by placing a per-country cap on the number of green cards that each country is allotted every year.
Indian outsourcers and tech billionaires, who rely prominently on importing foreign workers from India instead of hiring Americans, have complained that their imported temporary foreign workers wait too long for green cards and that they need these workers to obtain green cards quicker so that they can continue importing additional foreign workers.
Last year, Amazon sought to outsource thousands of American jobs by importing more than 4,000 H-1B foreign visa workers to take positions at the corporation, offering an average salary of less than $130,000.
Despite tech corporations’ claims that there is a shortage of American workers to take coveted high-paying, white collar jobs in the STEM fields, about four million young Americans enter the workforce each year. Many American workers have spoken out about how they were fired, replaced, and forced to train their foreign replacements.
Every year, more than 100,000 foreign workers are brought to the U.S. on the H-1B visa and are allowed to stay for up to six years. There are about 650,000 H-1B visa foreign workers in the U.S. at any given moment.
Americans are often laid off in the process and forced to train their foreign replacements, as highlighted by Breitbart News. More than 85,000 Americans annually potentially lose their jobs to foreign labor through the H-1B visa program.
