At a time when its past management problems have put the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Congress's crosshairs, a new and embarrassing blunder is bringing the INS even more flak. In particular, critics are knocking the agency's handling of a controversial program that allows high-technology companies to bypass immigration limits so they can import engineers and other skilled professionals deemed to be in short supply.
The INS foul-up came to light last month, as the agency was trying to close the books on the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30. After years of fending off charges from different sides that it undercounts or overcounts the number of visas it grants to workers in short supply, INS officials admitted that they had inadvertently approved as many as 20,000 more of these special visas in 1999 than the 115,000 permitted by law.
It seems that local INS offices were approving visas as fast as they could, but the tally wasn't making its way to agency headquarters in Washington.
As a result of the mistake, and because of torrid demand for workers with high-tech skills, Hewlett-Packard Co., Microsoft Corp., and other high-tech companies could be barred from hiring foreigners in 2000 as early as February, something that industry says would be a significant drag on growth.
The snafu is all the more embarrassing for the INS because it involves one of the most controversial programs the agency administers. The visa program known as H-1B is under constant and withering scrutiny by Congress, but, despite that, agency officials apparently didn't monitor it closely. Such problems are nothing new at the INS: Last spring, Government Executive magazine ranked the management of 15 high-profile federal agencies, and the immigration service came in last.
The slipup couldn't have come at a worse time for the INS, and for the visa program. The House held hearings last week on splitting the INS into separate agencies that would carry out its two distinct functions-keeping most foreigners out, and helping some of them to come in. "Little wonder there is such momentum behind the House's bipartisan legislation," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Lamar S. Smith, R-Texas, after hearing the details of the H-1B screwup.
It was also bad news for personnel recruiters, such as Steve Leven of Texas Instruments, who says he is already hard-pressed to find qualified electrical engineers. Because of the INS miscount, and because of a huge surplus of applications received in 1999, the INS could be shutting down the program for 2000 in late January. Leven said that means Texas Instruments, based in Dallas, won't be able to recruit foreigners until October-months after some of the potential workers receive their diplomas in U.S. universities. Foreign nationals accounted for 7 percent to 8 percent of Texas Instruments' new hires in 1999, said Leven.
He laments the bidding war for entry-level engineers: "The competition is incredible. Most of these guys are walking around with four or five offers, with bonuses and stock options on the table." A hiring delay "is going to hurt us and the whole industry, there's no doubt."
For politicians, the problems are no smaller. Pro- and anti-immigration forces in Washington battled to a draw on H-1B visas this year. The ranks of opponents of liberalizing the program include some conservatives, many liberals, and the AFL-CIO. They stopped business and pro-immigration lawmakers in Congress from raising the 115,000-visa quota, which was filled in July, three months before the end of the fiscal year. The INS and the White House, mindful of labor's opposition to liberalizing the program, opposed each of the four plans under debate in Congress to relax the quota and allow more hiring.
The issue divides both parties, and ordinarily this would be the kind of bipartisan muddle that Congress seeks to aviod during a presidential campaign, but there probably won't be any way to duck it, according to Renee Winsky, a vice president of the Information Technology Association of America. "If you're talking about the quota being filled in January, our members can't wait all year to hire people. We're going to be making our case very loudly."
And while Congress faces the practical task of keeping the program alive next year, the debate there could easily spill over into the presidential campaign. One GOP candidate, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, has his own bill to temporarily suspend restrictions on highly skilled high-tech immigrants. Texas Gov. George W. Bush also favors liberalizing the program. Vice President Al Gore, under intense pressure to break with the Administration and do something for the high-tech industry, has been held back by his allegiance to the AFL-CIO, which endorsed him for President last month.
INS officials have been silent about the H-1B program since their mistake was discovered last month-they won't say whether the miscount will be charged to last year's quota or this year's, and they won't even give a tally of how many visas have been approved since the new fiscal year began on Oct. 1. Not surprisingly, the two sides of the debate urge different responses to the miscount. AFL-CIO officials say the extra visas should be counted against this year's quota, but Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., chairman of a Senate subcommittee that overseas the INS, says that the visas should be counted against prior years in which the cap was never reached.
INS officials haven't ruled out revoking visas that were granted toward the end of fiscal 1999, a solution that high-tech executives describe as the worst of all possibilities. To revoke the residency of an engineer or a scientist who is six months into a design project-"well, I couldn't imagine anything worse," said Leven.