Lundeen Labh1b Supplement

ADI 20101

Lundeen LabH1B Supplement

****Aff****

Economy

Science Leadership

Competitiveness

AT: Hospital Overstretch – N/U

AT: Hospital Overstretch – Bioterror

AT: Hospital Overstretch – Disease

AT: Brain Drain – AIDS

AT: Brain Drain – Poverty

A2: US Imperialism/Colonialism

AT: US Imperialism

AT: Visa Amendment CP

****Neg****

Inherency

No Solvency

AT: Body Shopping

Economy

Hospital Overstretch 1NC 1/2

Hospital Overstretch 1NC 2/2

Hospital – Link Ext.

Impact Ext. – BioTerror 1/2

Impact Ext. – BioTerror 2/2

Impact - Bioterror = Nuclear Retaliation

Impact - Bioterror Attack Likely

Impact – Disease 1/2

Impact – Disease 2/2

Turns Case – Disease Collapses Economy

Turns Case – Collapses US Leadership

Brain Drain 1NC 1/2

Brain Drain 1NC 2/2

Brain Drain Ext – Uniqueness

Brain Drain Ext - Uniqueness

Brain Drain Ext. - Link

Brain Drain Impact – African Instability

Brain Drain Impact - Healthcare

Brain Drain Impact - Poverty

Brain Drain Impact – Colonialism

US Imperialism 1NC 1/2

US Imperialism 1NC 2/2

US Imperialism – Link Ext.

US Imperialism Link Ext.

US Imperialism Impact

Turn- Domestic Violence

Turn – Domestic Violence

Turn—H-1B= Discrimination

Turn—H-1B Visas=Unethical Now

CP—H-1B Visa Amendments

CP – Visa Amendments

CP Solves Better

CP-N/B—Plan Increases Hatred of Immigrants

CP—N/B—Equal Wage Enforcement

ADI 20101

Lundeen LabH1B Supplement

****Aff****

Economy

Demand For H-1 B Workers Is High; The Cap Stifles U.S Economy

Masters and Ruthizer 2k

(Suzette, Board of Directors of the National Immigration Forum and Ted, teaches immigration law at Columbia Law School. "The H-1B Straitjacket: Why Congress Should Repeal the Cap on Foreign-Born Highly Skilled Workers." March 3,

American industry's explosive demand for highly skilled workers is being stiﬂed by the federal quota on H-1B visas for foreign-born highly skilled workers. The quota is hampering output, especially in high-technology sectors, and forcing companies to consider moving production offshore. The number of H-1B visas was unlimited before 1990, when it was capped at 65,000 a year. In 1998 the annual cap was raised to 115,000 for 1999 and 2000, but industry is expected to ﬁll the quota several months before the end of the ﬁscal year. The shortage shows no sign of abating. Demand for core information technology workers in the United States is expected to grow by 150,000 a year for the next eight years, a rate of growth that cannot be met by the domestic labor supply alone.

Economic Fears About H-1 B Workers Unfounded

Masters and Ruthizer 2k

Fears that H-1B workers cause unemployment and depress wages are unfounded. H-1B workers create jobs for Americans by enabling the creation of new products and spurring innovation. High-tech industry executives estimate that a new H-1B engineer will typically create demand for an additional 3-5 American workers. Reports of systematic underpayment and fraud in the program are false. From 1991 through September 1999, only 134 violations were found by the U.S. Department of Labor, and only 7, or fewer than 1 per year, were found to be intentional. The lack of widespread violations conﬁrms that the vast majority of H-1B workers is being paid the legally required prevailing wage or more, undercutting charges that they are driving down wages for native workers. Wages are rising fastest and unemployment rates are lowest in industries in which H-1B workers are most prevalent. Congress should return to U.S. employers the ability to ﬁll gaps in their workforce with qualiﬁed foreign national professionals rapidly, subject to minimal regulation, and unhampered by artiﬁcially low numerical quotas.

Economy

Increasing the H-1B cap would provide billions in tax revenue

Sherk and Nell 8

(James and Guinevere, Senior Policy Analyst and Research Programmer, Heritage Foundation,” More H-1B Visas, More American Jobs, A Better Economy”, 4/30/08, JH

Raising the cap on H-1B visas for skilled workers would allow American businesses to expand operations here in the United States, creating more jobs and higher wages for American workers. Increasing the H-1B cap would also raise significant tax revenue from highly skilled and highly paid workers.

Heritage Foundation calculations show that raising the cap to 195,000 visas would increase revenues by a total of nearly $69 billion over eight years. Unlike tax increases, this would be an economically beneficial source of revenue for PAYGO offsets. (The pay-as-you-go rule mandates that any new congressional spending or tax changes must not add to the federal deficit; any new costs must be offset with money from existing funds.)

Congress should therefore act now to raise the cap on visas for highly skilled workers.

Expanding the H-1B visa cap will help the floundering economy and decrease unemployment

McNeill and Nguyen 9

(Jena Baker and Diem, Policy Analysts, The Heritage Foundation, “Help the Economy and Federal Deficit by Raising H-1B Caps”, 4/7/09,

There is a popular myth that H-1B workers displace Americans because foreigners will work for less than Americans even if they have greater qualifications. This notion is so widespread that Congress recently passed an amendment barring companies receiving TARP money from hiring H-1B employees.

But this notion is entirely false. H-1B visas are provided to foreign workers only if employers prove that they are paying prevailing wages (equivalent to American wages for that occupation). In addition, employers must show that no American workers with the appropriate qualifications were available.

This is self evident when one sees the effects of the H-1B visa shortage on companies. When companies cannot get H-1B visas for potential employees, they do not turn around and hire American workers; rather, they leave those jobs unfilled or expand outside the United States.

This was the case for Microsoft, which in 2008 decided to open a branch in Vancouver, Canada, to staff the 150 engineers who were not fortunate enough to get H-1B visas.[1] A survey by the National Foundation for American Policy found that 65 percent of high-tech companies employed people outside the United States due to their inability to obtain H-1B visas.[2]

In reality, H-1B visas spur economic growth.The National Foundation for American Policy showed that, on average, for every H-1B employee hired, an additional five American employees were also hired. If Microsoft had opened its branch in the United States rather than Vancouver, they would have hired American workers to staff and operate the new branch in addition to their H-1B hires.

H-1B workers are some of the best and brightest in the world. Ensuring that they work in the United States for American businesses will only help the economy.

Science Leadership

H-1B Visas are necessary to ensure US Science Hegemony

Paarlberg 4

(Robert L, Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College, International Security, Volume 29, Number 1, Knowledge as Power: Science, Military Dominance, and U.S. Security, Summer 2004, KV)

U.S. science has found a way to overcome this domestic educational handicap by importing trained science talent from abroad. In this sense, globalization can be counted as a support for U.S. science hegemony, not a threat to that hegemony. U.S. universities make up for K-12 educational deficits in science and math by attracting well-trained STEM students from abroad, and then by persuading the best of these foreign students to stay. In all the natural sciences and engineering, 35 percent of U.S. Ph.D.'s are now awarded to foreign students. In the physical sciences and engineering specifically, roughly 50 percent of U.S. Ph.D.'s now go to foreign students.68 In addition to universities, high-technology U.S. manufacturing firms have also come to rely heavily on foreign-born graduates for a substantial portion of their growing workforce.69 Between 1990 and 2000, the foreign-born share of science and engineering doctorates in the U.S. workforce increased from 24 percent to 28 percent. When it comes to science, the United States remains the preeminent land of immigrants. In 1999 all four of the U.S. Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, physiology/medicine, and economics were born outside of the United States.

Roughly one-third of the foreign scientists now working in the United States arrived already fully trained.70 When the United States allows graduates from India's elite institutes of technology to enter with temporary visas, the nation gains access at no charge to a human capital resource that costs the government of India roughly $15,000-$20,000 per student to train. By implication, when Congress in 1998 eased the annual quota on H-1B visas, thus facilitating movement into the country for roughly 100,000 of these well-trained Indian professionals, the training cost savings for the United States equaled $2 billion per year.71 As long as the United States can continue to attract this trained foreign [End Page 144] talent, the weakness of its own K-12 science preparation system will not have to undermine U.S. science hegemony overall.

H-1B Cap increase is key to continued US technology and market leadership

Washington Times, Editorial 98

(“Keeping the high-tech edge”, 9/17, ,pg.A22 , KV)

The United States leads the world in information technology, telecommunications, computers, biomedical research and development and other high-tech industries. Those leadership positions have been indispensable sources of the nation's strong economic growth since the early 1980s. Yet, no leadership position can ever be taken for granted. Recall the U.S. auto industry's disastrous experience from the mid-1970s through the early 1980s. In today's globalized economy, where technology can be easily transferred and finance capital rapidly flows to firms anywhere in the world that promise the highest returns, the U.S. high-technology industries must fight ferociously to maintain their hard-won competitive advantages.

One of the United States' big advantages is its magnetic attraction to brilliant scientists and engineers from other countries who seek to work at the cutting edge in U.S. high-tech industries. Unfortunately, U.S. law currently limits the number of work visas that can be given to highly skilled foreign-born professionals - so-called H-1B visas - to 65,000 a year. The services of these engineers and scientists are in such great demand here that the 65,000 quota was reached in May, more than four months before the end of the 1998 fiscal year. The shortage of such workers is further reflected in the hundreds of thousands of unfilled, high-paying job vacancies in high-tech sectors.

Competitiveness

US Needs increase in H-1B Visa Cap to continue global competitiveness

Hansen, Workforce Management, 4-10-06

(Fay ,“Visa limits fuel frustration in efforts to fill technical jobs; Observers say firms are being forced to drop key projects or offshore more work; a proposal to raise the cap on H-1B visas could provide relief”,Workforce Management,THE INSIDER; Pg. 44,1,KV)

When U.S. recruiters go out to buy technical talent, they shop in domestic markets that are highly protected by restrictive immigration policies, voluminous and ever-changing rules and a cumbersome visa process. The prime example of this regulatory nightmare is the H-1B visa program. The current capon the number of H-1B visas issued annually is 65,000, or about 1 percent of the total U.S. science and engineering workforce.

``The cap on H-1B visas has limited the high-tech industry's ability to attract and retain the best and the brightest workers,'' says Jack Krumholtz, managing director for federal government affairs at Microsoft. ``This harms our ability to innovate and has negative consequences for U.S. global competitiveness. This challenge is only increasing. In 2005, the H-1B cap was reached two months before the fiscal year even began.''

Legislation to raise the cap to 115,000 is part of a huge package of immigration law reforms now before Congress, but experts agree that there is no guarantee that the higher cap will pass. If Congress does not raise the cap substantially, recruiting sufficient numbers of skilled science and engineering workers will become impossible.

Competitiveness

H-1B visas help the economy and the current cap is counterproductive for competiveness in the global market

Sherk & Nguyen 8

(James & Diem, Senior Policy Analyst in Labor Economics, Heritage Foundation, 3/31, 8/1/10, LMS)

Starting on April 1, any foreigner in the world who has a specialized skill with a college degree or higher will have only one day to apply for a U.S. work visa for fiscal year (FY) 2009. After that, many experts predict that the cap for H-1B visas will be met, requiring foreigners to wait another 12 months before applying again and leaving American companies without needed workers. H-1B visas are given to highly educated foreigners who are sponsored by American employers. As the law currently stands, a maximum of 65,000 visas is given each fiscal year.

Admitting such a low number of qualified workers hurts the high-tech industry in the United States and pushes the smartest people to work in competing countries like China. Some U.S companies that are desperate for workers, like Microsoft, have moved certain branches to Canada and Mexico.

Representatives Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and Lamar Smith (R-TX) have recognized the gravity of the problem and have introduced similar bills raising the cap for H-1B visas. Raising the cap is a necessary first step, but more should be done to make H-1B visas flexible. Their number should reflect the economy's need for high-tech workers-not arbitrary limits set by Congress.

H-1B Visas

As with other work visas, employers must navigate highly complicated procedures to hire workers on an H-1B visa. The application process involves several U.S. departments and is often a bureaucratic nightmare. Despite these obstacles, the visas are popular with employers.

Congress has tried to fix the H-1B cap before, but these fixes were temporary and largely ineffective. The cap was raised to 115,000 visas in 1999 and to 195,000 visas in 2001. Because of the pitfalls of navigating the application process, combined with the economic slowdown of 2002, not all of the visas authorized were issued in FY 2003. As a result, an excess of 117,000 visas was discarded at the end of the year.

Congress lowered the cap back to 65,000 for FY 2003. Since that year, employers have used every authorized visa. Employers have also exhausted the annual H-1B visa supply at a faster rate. In 2007, employers used up the entire quota less than a day after U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) started accepting applications, and USCIS conducted a lottery to determine which workers would receive visas.[1]

Not all H-1B visas are counted against the cap. The first 20,000 H-1B visas issued to workers with a master's degree or higher are not deducted from the 65,000 cap.Employees of universities are similarly exempt. On the other hand, Singapore and Chile have a guaranteed 6,800 visas, which are counted against the 65,000 cap.

Insourcing Jobs

Increasing the cap on H-1B visas creates new jobs for American workers, not just H-1B immigrants. Employees do not compete for a fixed number of jobs so that when more H-1B workers come to the United States, an equal number of Americans lose their jobs. Instead, businesses create jobs when they grow and shed jobs when they shrink.

Currently, the economy has a severe shortage of workers for many high-skilled positions. The unemployment rate in computer and mathematical occupations, like computer programming, was 2.1 percent in 2007-essentially full employment after accounting for workers between jobs.[2] There are not enough high-tech workers in America to fill the jobs that employers want them to do. By increasing the H-1B cap, Congress would allow companies to fill vital positions and enable them to expand within the United States, which avoids the problem of companies outsourcing work or moving overseas.

AT: Hospital Overstretch – N/U

Non unique – overstretch inevitable -

Overpopulation and collapse of the health care infrastructure is threatening the U.S. now.
Johnson 10

(Carla K. Johnson, AP medical writer, “Health overhaul may mean longer ER waits, crowding” Jul. 2, 2010, 85bb41a15281cf/Article_2010-07 -02-US-MED-ER-Crowding/id66f20bc7efc64a4989 d2cbc2499b297f) aat

CHICAGO (AP) — Emergency rooms, the only choice for patients who can't find care elsewhere, may grow even more crowded with longer wait times under the nation's new health law. That might come as a surprise to those who thought getting 32 million more people covered by health insurance would ease ER crowding. It would seem these patients would be able to get routine health care by visiting a doctor's office, as most of the insured do. But it's not that simple. Consider: —There's already a shortage of front-line family physiciansin some places and experts think that will get worse. —People without insurance aren't the ones filling up the nation's emergency rooms. Far from it. The uninsured are no more likely to use ERs than people with private insurance, perhaps because they're wary of huge bills. —The biggest users of emergency rooms by far are Medicaid recipients. And the new health insurance law will increase their ranks by about 16 million. Medicaid is the state and federal program for low-income families and the disabled. And many family doctors limit the number of Medicaid patients they take because of low government reimbursements. —ERs are already crowdedand hospitals are just now finding solutions. Rand Corp. researcher Dr. Arthur L. Kellermann predicts this from the new law: "More people will have coverage and will be less afraid to go to the emergency department if they're sick or hurt and have nowhere else to go.... We just don't have other places in the system for these folks to go." Kellermann and other experts point to Massachusetts, the model for federal health overhaul where a 2006 law requires insurance for almost everyone. Reports from the state find ER visits continuing to rise since the law passed — contrary to hopes of its backers who reasoned that expanding coverage would give many people access to doctors offices. Massachusetts reported a 7 percent increase in ER visits between 2005 and 2007. A more recent estimate drawn from Boston area hospitals showed an ER visit increase of 4 percent from 2006 to 2008 — not dramatic, but still a bit ahead of national trends. "Just because we've insured people doesn't mean they now have access," said Dr. Elijah Berg, a Boston area ER doctor. "They're coming to the emergency department because they don't have access to alternatives." Crowding and long waits have plagued U.S. emergency departments for years. A 2009 report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, found ER patients who should have been seen immediately waited nearly a half-hour. "We're starting out with crowded conditions and anticipating things will only get worse," said American College of Emergency Physicians president Dr. Angela Gardner. Federal stimulus money and the new health law address the primary care shortage with training for 16,000 more providers, said Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman Jessica Santillo. But many experts say solving ER crowding is more complicated. What's causing crowding? Imagine an emergency department with a front door and a back door. There's crowding at both ends. At the front door, ERs are strained by an aging population and more people with chronic illnesses like diabetes. Many ERs closed during the 1990s, leaving fewer to handle the load. The American Hospital Association's annual survey shows a 10 percent decline in emergency departments from 1991 to 2008. Meanwhile, emergency visits rose dramatically.