Abramoff Interior Connection Guilty, While Gates Pushes for More H-1B Visas

As my previous American Chronicle Magazine article (March 6, 2007) that caused quite a rousing response had stated: the "Team Abramoff" connections within the Republican administration and the overall business community has reached heights that will hopefully be known to all as the scandal's Senate investigation continues. Before we present the latest casualty, let's look at the scorecard to date as listed in part from the San Diego Union Tribune as of 3/23/07:

Tom DeLay, former House Majority Leader (R-Tex) is currently under indictment of a charge of criminally conspiring with two political associates to inject illegal corporate contributions into 2002 state elections. These contributions helped reorder the congressional map of Texas and increase the Republican control at the Whitehouse. The two political associates, James W. Ellis - Delay's principal fundraiser and John D. Colyandro - Director of Delay's fundraising committee, have pleaded guilty to 13 counts of unlawful acceptance of corporate political contributions and money laundering. Delay is also implicated in a deal with Jack Abramoff where, based on tax records of Mariana Islands textile owners, they received help from the Majority Leader, via payments to Abramoff, for blocking legislation that would boost the textile company's labor costs and prohibit some of the illegal Mariana female sex trade.

Jack Abramoff is serving six years in prison on a criminal case out of Florida, where he pleaded guilty in January 2006 to charges of conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion. He has not yet been sentenced on charges of mail fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion stemming from the influence-peddling scandal in Washington. Abramoff is cooperating in a bribery investigation involving lawmakers, their aides and members of the Bush administration.

Former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, sentenced in January to 2 1/2 years in prison, acknowledged taking bribes from Abramoff. Ney was in the traveling party on the Abramoff-sponsored golfing trip to Scotland that was at the heart of the case against former White House official David Safavian.

Tony Rudy, lobbyist and onetime aide to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, pleaded guilty in March 2006 to conspiring with Abramoff. He is cooperating with investigators.

David Safavian, the Bush administration's former top procurement official and a former Chief of Staff for the General Services Administration, was sentenced to 18 months in prison in October after he was found guilty of covering up his dealings with Abramoff. Safavian is appealing his June 2006 conviction.

Michael Scanlon, a former Abramoff business partner and DeLay aide, pleaded guilty in November 2005 to conspiring to bribe public officials in connection with his lobbying work on behalf of Indian tribes and casino issues. He is cooperating with investigators.

William Heaton, former chief of staff for Ney, pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge involving a golf trip to Scotland, expensive meals and tickets to sporting events between 2002 and 2004 as payoffs for helping Abramoff's clients.

Neil Volz, a former chief of staff to Ney who left government to work for Abramoff, pleaded guilty in May 2006 to conspiring to corrupt Ney and others with trips and other aid.

Roger Stillwell, a former Interior Department official, was sentenced to two years on probation in January after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge for not reporting hundreds of dollars worth of sports and concert tickets he received from Abramoff.

Abramoff Candidate #10:

This week the latest candidate for involvement with the Abramoff debacle and potentially the highest to date within in the Bush Administration was confirmed as guilty of lying in a Senate investigation. Steven Griles - Former Deputy Interior Minister, (the #2 Interior official), pleaded guilty to lying to the Senate about his relationship with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who gained the official's intervention at the Interior Department for Abramoff's American Indian tribal clients. Griles could have received up to five years in jail. However, the prosecutors agreed to 10 months in exchange for the guilty plea. The Justice Department said that the investigation into the Abramoff case will continue for weeks and months to come. (Prior to his high level position in the Dept. of Interior, Giles was a mining lobbyist that continually drew the wrath of the environmentalists.)

Stay Tuned.

Microsoft Brings in the Big Guns:

As was also stated in the previous Abramoff article, the largest contributor for financing the "Team Abramoff" lobbyist group was the software giant Microsoft Corporation. (Team Abramoff was hired by Bill Gates father's law firm, Preston-Gates.) At the time, Mr. Abramoff with other Washington DC lobbyists were very successful at increasing the number of issued H-1B visa's which are the key for high-tech companies to import low-cost, software engineering personnel. Due to the financial support of the Microsoft's lobbyists, they were successful in increasing the number of H-1B visas in 1996, 1998 and 2000. It was hoped with the corralling of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his Team Abramoff, Microsoft's quest for more increases of the H-1B visas would subside. Unfortunately, Microsoft decided to bring in the big boys.

Microsoft has now chosen to take the direct route, and in doing so has enlisted the help of a very senior US Senator. On March 7th, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass), invited the chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates III (World's Wealthiest Man) to address Congress and asked for Mr. Gates' advice on improving US competitiveness. Kennedy had stated that "the US cannot sit back and watch other countries attract the best talent".

In response, Gates not only asked for an Increase in H-1B visas, he asked for:"the United States to welcome infinite numbers of high-skilled foreign workers." "The US should open our doors to highly talented scientists and engineers that want to live, work and pay taxes here." (As if an unemployed American software engineer doesn't?) Senator Kennedy is also working with Senator, John McCain (R-Ariz), on an immigration reform package that may include more H-1B visas.

The following is a better rebuttal by someone from the front lines to both Bill Gates and the Senator for why there does not need to be more approvals of H-1B visas. This information is provided by a Mr. Kim Berry, a computer programmer in Sacramento, Calif., and President of the Programmers Guild.

"Many U.S. engineers and immigration opponents are hoping to thwart creation of more visas, as US companies use these foreign workers to drive down U.S. wages. We opposes creation of more visas because they already are pushing Americans out of the market. Employers are so eager to get access to lower-wage workers that they don't even first consider using any qualified Americans. More young Americans would be drawn to such work if the pay were better. That's the way supply and demand is supposed to work. You boost the salary and you could convince more U.S. students to study engineering and programming. I believe that House members are probably more likely to block the Senate from raising the H-1B visa cap. Members of the House seem more realistic and down to Earth, compared with the Senate, where many the members are millionaires and do not know or understand the average worker and their needs and capabilities."

Unfortunately, with Senator Kennedy's support, Gates faced no harsh challenges from the committee. Even Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said that in his state, which struggles with high unemployment, business owners have told him "they just could not find the engineers or computer scientists they needed to run their business." Of course their answer appears to be: "Just put a Want Ad in the New Delhi Times"and we'll get plenty of response."

On another note, Kennedy did however, ask Gates whether allowing more health professionals into the United States might cause a "brain drain" in poorer countries. Gates said that keeping such professionals out of the U.S. is no solution because "they just go to other countries" with high living standards". Which implies that we should just open the immigration gate for available professionals as is needed. For the long-term, Mr. Gates did call for improvements in high school education and the doubling of college graduates in math and science by 2015. He urged lawmakers to significantly boost spending on basic scientific research.

What was NOT said:

Of course Mr. Gates and Senator Kennedy failed to mention that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) states, as of Q3, 2006, that American Software Engineers, Computer Scientists and System Analysts had a net loss of 93,000 jobs over the last year. Many of those currently looking for jobs in these areas state that there are usually only a few ads for these positions and when they are checked out, half of them are not real jobs. Apparently some corporations continue to run the ads for longer periods just to support the claim that there are no Americans available for the positions. Microsoft tends to always say that H-1B workers will be paid the "prevailing wage". This means wages equal with what the US. workers earn in the same position. The Department of Labor(DOL) defines four levels of “prevailing wage,” and over 80% of H-1B are at Level One, the very lowest level. The DOL now approves H-1B programmers to work in Silicon Valley for $40k per year- hardly the "prevailing Silicon Valley wage" - and hardly an indication that these workers are the "best and brightest". The real negative issue with the H-1B visa is that the law allows the employers to hire lower paid foreign workers, and many that only have basic average skills, even if the employers have a stack of resumes from qualified US workers sitting on their desk.

What is really disturbing about the Microsoft connection with the H-1B issue is that they are not even making a show of trying to hire US high-tech workers. Microsoft did not attempt to recruit at any of the 22 California State University campuses, where many of the high-tech US computer workers graduate. Microsoft did not sign up for participating at this year's Engineering Job Fair at CSUS.

To top off the hypocrisy of all this is the involvement of the special interest groups such as the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). This group is part of an annual $100 Million Dollar industry that specializes in processing corporate immigration documents. In addition, seven of the major H-1B users are not even US corporations. They are East Indian Outsourcing Firms. These organizations bring in Indian workers, train them and then transfer the workers, jobs and the technology back to India. This supports a major loss of US industry infrastructure.