washington

A number of non-US research staff hired by American universities are stranded without visas to enter the country following political stalemate over quotas for overseas-born professionals.

The visa problem is holding up temporary faculty appointments at a number of institutions, according to Sang Han, who tracks immigration issues for the Association of American Universities (AAU).

“At least three department heads are tearing their hair out” because non-US faculty members who were supposed to begin teaching classes in September will not arrive in time, says Richard Lariviere, vice-president of international programs at the University of Texas.

Visa applications in the ‘H-1B’ category — which includes computer programmers, physical therapists, and university jobs ranging from visiting professors to research associates — have been frozen since May, when the annual quota of 65,000 visas was filled.

A bill proposed by Congressman Lamar Smith (Republican, Texas) would add another 20,000 slots for this fiscal year, which ends on 30 September. But the bill was withdrawn last week, under threat of a presidential veto. The earliest Congress can take up the matter now is 9 September, when the House of Representatives returns from a month-long recess.

The controversy has its roots in the politics of the labour market for computer programmers and systems analysts, rather than academic scientists. The US software industry has lobbied strenuously for an increase in the number of H-1B visas, claiming that a shortage of native-born workers forces it to hire programmers from India and other countries.

But opponents of an H-1B increase — including some labour unions — say there is no domestic labour shortage. They say Silicon Valley companies are simply trying to hold down wages by hiring lower-paid staff from overseas.

The White House is torn between its desire to serve the politically powerful software industry, and its desire to side with workers' organizations. To become law, Smith's bill is likely to need stronger protection for US workers.

Universities are caught in the crossfire. They filed only two per cent of the 400,000 applications for H-1B visas last year (40 per cent of the applications to the Department of Labor were for programmers and 25 per cent for physical therapists).

Lariviere says the academic community is more discriminating than the software industry. “These [faculty members] are really very carefully targeted individuals,” he says. “Our mandate is to find the best person,” unlike the software industry which, he claims, fills “job shops” with programmers holding temporary visas.

Smith's proposed legislation, a version of which has already passed the Senate, would raise the H-1B quota to 95,000 next year, 105,000 in 2000, and 115,000 in 2001 and 2002, before dropping to 65,000 again in 2003.

But, even if these increases are approved, Lariviere worries that they will only delay the inevitable, and that the H-1B slots will still run out before the end of the year. “I suspect all we've done [with the bill] is move back slightly the date when the cap will be hit.”

In addition, universities fear that the software industry will quickly swallow up any new slots, steadily reducing the number of visas left for universities. Extra programmers are being recruited to help solve the ‘millennium bug’ problem.

Applications for H-1B visas are ‘first-come, first-served,’ with no quotas for any category of worker. The ceiling is reached earlier every year. In 1997 all 65,000 slots were taken by July, but this year they lasted only until May.

Han of the AAU says that, if nothing changes, next year's allocation of visas may all be gone by January.