Two San Diego-area congressmen have introduced a bipartisan bill that would close loopholes in the H-1B visa program. It's part of an effort to limit outsourcing thousands of well-paying American jobs.
Congressman Darrell Issa, R-Vista, and Congressman Scott Peters, D-San Diego, have proposed legislation that would restrict the number of foreign workers U.S. companies can hire for high-skilled jobs.
Currently, there are exemptions to the caps on H-1B visas for employees who earn $60,000 a year, or who hold the equivalent of a master's degree.
The new legislation would eliminate the master's degree exemption and raise the salary threshold to $100,000. That would make it less likely that foreign workers would undercut salaries expected by American workers.
Linda Kurokawa, director of community education and workforce development at Mira Costa College, said legislation to limit H-1B visas is only half of the solution to the problem of outsourcing U.S. jobs. She said the other half is for Congress to fund programs to get more Americans educated to take those jobs.
“At the same time, they are providing grant funds of hundreds of millions of dollars for institutions like ours to take advantage and produce a program to create a talent pipeline for those positions," Kurokawa said.
Currently, well over 100,000 jobs a year are outsourced using H-1B visas in the U.S. because companies say they cannot find Americans with the skills to do the work.
