Message Points

H-1B Visas

How to Use the Message: Use these messages when discussing H-1B visas with Congress and the news media. You should start with the overall theme, and hit as many of the messages and sub-messages as time permits. Remember these themes help you connect with people who do not know as much about the topic as you do. The messages may seem simplistic to subject experts like you, but are crafted so that you can make your point using emotion and fact, so that people can grasp both the problem and the solution.

OVERALL THEME:  The H-1B cap is a cap on America’s economic growth.

There is a shortage of skilled professional workers.

• Federal Reserve Board reports that companies across the country have difficulty in finding and retaining qualified professionals.
• All sectors of the economy are affected – manufacturing, technology, small business, education and state and local governments.
• 88% of manufacturers report difficulty in finding qualified candidates for a myriad of jobs.
• The U.S. Commerce Department says up to 190,000 high-tech jobs are going unfilled.
• Hospitals across the country are having a hard time getting health care professionals
• Colleges, universities and school districts across the country cannot obtain qualified instructors.

H-1B visas are part of the solution.

• Temporary foreign professionals are a small part of the solution – representing less than 0.1% of the U.S. labor force. 
• U.S. companies continue to invest in the America’s workforce--$210 billion in training and education each year.
• H-1Bs allow companies, colleges, universities and school districts to hire temporary foreign professionals.
• H-1B applicants can only be hired for jobs requiring the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree.
• H-1B visas cover professionals, such as accountants, doctors, engineers, health care professionals, researchers, professors, teachers, and computer professionals.
• H-1B professionals do not hurt U.S. workers -- employers must protect wages and working conditions, first recruit in the U.S., and cannot displace American workers.
• H-1B employees create additional jobs in the economy.

The H-1B cap is a cap on American economic growth.

• The current H-1B cap is 115,000 visas this fiscal year; it will decrease to 107,500 next year, and will go down to 65,000 the following year.
• The cap has been reached early in each of the last three years.
• American companies cannot obtain needed professionals, who are being taken by our foreign competition.
• Companies tell the Federal Reserve Board they have cut back on expansion plans due to the shortage of professionals.  Some companies have moved operations overseas.
• Chairman Alan Greenspan of the Federal Reserve notes that without immigration our economic growth could be threatened.

Support S. 2045 and H.R. 3983 – Help Keep our Economy Growing!