H-1B Visas: Mark Zuckerberg's Short Answer for Immigration Reform

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, has launched his first foray into the area of politics with Fwd.us, a political action group that has gained the backing several other high-tech heavy hitters and will be focused on improving education, promoting investment in scientific research and --- most notably, considering all the related political fireworks going off at the moment --- immigration reform.

Zuckerberg announced the formation of the organization, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that typically is classified as a civic league or social welfare organization, in an op-ed piece that ran in the Washington Post April 10.  

Other than Zuckerberg, whom the Wall Street Journal reports is looking to raise an initial $50 million for the effort, the group's other key backers include: Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn; John Doerr, the venture capitalist who has backed Google and Amazon.com; Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's chief executive; and Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman.

Zuckerberg's call for comprehensive immigration reform pushes effective border security, a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the country and a revamped system that "lets us attract the most talented and hardest-working people...to build the knowledge economy the United States needs to ensure more jobs, innovation and investment."

Today's economy, rooted in knowledge and ideas, is very different from the economy of the 20th century, Zuckerberg said, which was "based on natural resources, industrial machines and manual labor. Many of these resources were zero-sum and controlled by companies. If someone else had an oil field, then you did not."

But, "unlike oil fields, someone else knowing something doesn't prevent you from knowing it, too," he said. "In fact, the more people who know something, the better educated and trained we all are, the more productive we become, and the better off everyone in our nation can be."

Zuckerberg suggested one of the surest ways to begin fixing the immigration system, as well as the economy, is to increase the number of H-1B temporary visas for high-skilled foreign workers and also shorten the amount of time such workers must wait for green cards.

Zuckerberg's piece immediately drew accolades from online supporters, who praised the 28-year-old for being visionary and tackling the pressing issues of the day.

Said one poster at the Huffington Post: "He is right...It is up to Americans to keep up with global demand of skilled workers in this space. Not him."

Many others, however, said they were skeptical of Zuckerberg's motives and concerned such a wave of new immigrant workers would throw more water on the nation's still-sluggish economy.

"Immigration reform," wrote one Washington Post visitor, "is used as an excuse to increase H1B visas to import even more cheap IT labor and do even more massive layoffs of IT workers."

According to the U.S. Department of Labor website, H-1B visas are offered through the Immigrant and Nationality Act for employers wanting to hire "non-immigrant aliens as workers in specialty occupations or as fashion models of distinguished merit and ability," using the H-1B classification.

The visas are issued to employers who agree to:

Pay non-immigrant workers at least the local prevailing wage or the employer's actual wage, whichever is higher, and pay for some instances of non-productive time and offer benefits on the same basis as for U.S. workers;

Provide working conditions for workers that will not adversely affect the working conditions of workers similarly employed;

Do not employ a worker at a location where a strike or lockout in the occupational classification is occurring, and notify ETA of any future strike or lockout; and

Provide notice of the employer's intent to hire foreign workers on or within 30 days before the date the visa application is filed with the Labor Department. The employer must provide notification to the bargaining representative of workers in the occupation of the foreign worker.

The H-1B visas are capped at 65,000 per fiscal year.