Skilled Aliens Take Jobs From American Workers Reich Cites Abuses In Program Intended To Alleviate Shortage Of Workers

Some employers are abusing a program that lets them hire skilled foreigners temporarily when qualified Americans aren’t available, Labor Secretary Robert Reich said Thursday.

The businesses are replacing U.S. workers - mainly in high-tech jobs - with aliens willing to work at significantly lower wages, Reich told a Senate Judiciary Committee panel. He asked senators to put new restrictions on the program as part of Republican efforts to overhaul the nation’s immigration law.

In some cases, employers recruit foreigners into jobs for which Americans could be trained, and the foreign workers recruited frequently are “underpaid, poorly trained and minimally qualified,” he said.

“I firmly believe that hiring foreign over domestic workers should be the rare exception, not the rule,” Reich said during a public hearing. “And I believe such exceptions should be even rarer, and more tightly targeted on gaps in the domestic labor market than is generally the case under current policy.”

Reich also said loopholes in the law have created “body shops,” employers who import hundreds of foreign workers with permission to stay in the United States, sometimes for up to six years.

Nearly 570,000 foreign workers were admitted to the United States temporarily from 1992 to 1994, Reich said. An unknown number remained here illegally after their visas expired, and many apply for permanent visas.

Because of limited enforcement ability, regulators aren’t sure how many companies are abusing the program, but the number of complaints filed has been increasing steadily, the Labor Department said. Officials believe the problem is becoming widespread.

“I believe Congress wants American business, industry and the universities to have the ‘best and the brightest,”’ wherever they are in the world, said Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., chairman of the immigration subcommittee.

“Any legislation that we enact will not be in the national interest unless it protects not only the ‘best and the brightest,’ but all American workers from unfair competition by foreign workers, many of whom would be overjoyed to receive even a fraction of the wages received by Americans,” Simpson said.

Immigration lawyer Austin Fragomen of New York told Simpson he didn’t think the problem required drastic changes in the law.

“There is abuse of the current … system, but it is by no means overwhelming,” he said in a written statement to the subcommittee.

Fragomen, who chairs the American Council on International Personnel, said the problem could be resolved through better enforcement.

Reich said the Clinton administration supports a proposal to charge fees to businesses importing foreign workers. The money would go into a fund that would pay for better training of U.S. workers.