12/23/098- "Gaming the System" - Guest Worker Visa Programs and Professional and Technical Workers in the U.S.
The United States' guest worker visa programs are a flashpoint in the ongoing immigrationdebate. With a fallible reporting process and no unified government agency to provide oversight,
the U.S.'s panoply of guest worker visa programs are overly complicated, lack accountability,
have lax tracking enforcement and are a prime example of why U.S. immigration policy needs to
be reformed. Three factors are especially important in assessing guest worker visa programs, such as
the H-1 B or L-1 : the program itself, the condition and demand of the domestic U.S. labor market and the
situation faced by workers whom such programs affect. The following report will examine these three
factors, with attention to the particular effects of guest worker visas on the science, technology,
engineering, math (STEM) and education workforces. The end of this report will present a workable
framework for immigration reform that the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO (DPE), sees
as addressing and remedying many
