award-winning investigative series. monday, 10:00 eastern. on al jazeera america. >> i'm ali velshi. "on target" tonight labor pains. the truth about immigrant workers american jobs and the so-called skills gap in the tech industry. plus border backlog. immigrants who want to become americans left in limbo. america's immigration debate came back with a vengeance at the week's republican presidential debate in boulder. have a listen. >> people coming in legally and mexico is going to pay for the

wall. >> before you hire anyone from abroad you should have to advertise that job for 180 days. you would have to pay these people more than someone else so you wouldn't undercut by bringing in cheaper labor. >> when it comes to america's system, undocumented workers crossing into the u.s. from mexico also also the system of temporary work visas that silicon valley and others say they rely on to hire skilled workers. big business says think need foreign workers, h 1b we're going to have more on that in a moment but first almost everyone agrees there is a shortage of workers in stem field, science technology engineering and mathematics. already growing information technology fields like software

development information technology and cyber security. both the white house and silicon valley feel the result should be keeping more foreign students with advanced degrees in the united states but the detractors out there think that all of this talk to reform to temporary work programs is a vast conspiracy. tech ceos want to bring in cheap foreign labor to displace better paid american workers. they say talk of a so-called skills gap or a shortage of highly strained workers is just overbroken. for moroverbroken. mary notice has th snow has the. >> temporary worker h 1b visa was thrust into a larger spotlight. >> why does the government continue to issue and extend h 1b visas where there are tons of

americans like my husband with no job. >> the h 1b should be reserved for those companies who say they cannot find somebody in that particular field. >> reporter: the conversation brought attention to the vees program designeto the visaprogr. each year the u.s. issues 80,000 h 1b visas. the rest must at least have a bachelor's degree. tech giants in silicon valley are pushing to expand those numbers, arguing there's a shortage of skilled workers in the u.s. robert hoffman is a lobbyist for the tech industry. >> there are hundreds of thousands of jobs that are going unfilled in this country. unless we address it with better workforce policies, education and training policies those jobs will find themselves off shore. >> arguing companies are actually seeking cheap labor.

>> they're not coming in to fill skills gaps. and we know they're not filling skills gaps because they are forcing the american workers who have the higher skills to train their foreign replacement. >> critics point disney, in june the new york times broke a story, that replacements on h 1b visas, layoffs for 35 tech workers were cancelled. a shall outcry erupted at utility's southern california edison when information technology workers were reported to be laid off. there too workers said they were training replacements in the country on h 1b visas. >> you also have to prove that you're going to pay these people more than you would pay someone else so you're not undercutting it by bringing in cheap labor. >> reporter: debate on the program and how it's used has bubbled over into presidential politics as candidates spar whether h 1b visas should be

expanded. mary snow, al jazeera. >> those in the u.s. who oppose opening the door a bit more they also have a point. the government accountability office found that some companies prefer h 1b workers because they are more willing to relocate and to accept lower wages than their american counterparts. in fact six of the top 10 companies applying for these visas on behalf of their workers were headquartered in india. does the america's quest to attract the next albert einstein, viveck, did to see you. you have just heard about the workers who were brought in to train the people the they were replacing. allowing a misuse of the intent of these visas. >> i have an issue with the way this issue without doubt there is wrongdoing happening here.

and the people who are using the visa in the wrong way should be punished. i tell you i live in silicon valley. here we are starved for talent. i acknowledge that there are some very solid engineers in certain parts of the country who are unemployed. the problem is they're not here where we need them. very often you know engineers have one skill and we're looking for another skill so there's a mismatch between location, person and skill. and they're not here where the talent is badly needed. >> you testified before congress and you proposed a seven step plan to stop the brain drain that you talk about in regards to the h1b. explain what that means. that's separate from that idea where there should be these workers. you're worried that trained workers are leaving america. >> what's happening is the u.s. is reinventing itself. we have a solving of policy and

disease, these things are fixable. amazing things are happening with technology now. it is globalized, you can build world changing technologies anywhere in the world now. for the past ten years we have been bringing these people in on temporary visas, they have been working for us in our companies and then we tell them go on home we don't need you. this is brain dead. they prove themselves to be competent anding workable. we have always had the best and the brightest, competing, making the natives uncomfortable which is what they're doing now and we have always had this debate since the beginning of america. this is what we're going through right now. what i'm saying is if you bring them here and they're employable and they have the right skills let them contribute to our success. it is that simple my friend. >> what does your research tell

you about people who come into america on an h1b visa? >> the h1b visa is the stepping-stone to permanent residence. this is a flawed visa. we have more than a million people now waiting for green cards. the time necessary to get permanent residence could be decades. so people get stalled in their old jobs. the opponents of h1bs rightly argue that some can be underpaid. they are stuck in limbo waiting for their green card. they have to get at the back of the line. >> let me ask you this then. critics of h1b visas argue that these people coming this on these visas are driving wages down for american workers. how do you deal with that? >> in some parts of the facing some companies are abusing the visas, i am against that.

we are starved for talent in silicon valley. by keeping immigrants out of here we are hurting american competitiveness. we are making the pie smaller and bad for everyone. people who make six-figure salaries, is that what people really care about? we create jobs for millions of people or tens of millions of people. this whole debate is centered around literally ten or 20,000 visas, which could be uplifted if we grew our economy and let innovation flourish. the hefty $6 million salaries are bitter they can't get employment are not guaranteed employment because they are used to making such highing wages. >> why america is losing the global race for talent. viveck good to tel speak to you.

>> a program note, this program is moving to 9:00 p.m. starting monday on al jazeera america.

>> the debate over immigration reform, low skilled work in this country there is a serious debate about the need to source more high skilled workers from abroad. right now companies are allowed to bring in tens of thousands of skilled workers every year by issuing h 1b temporary work visas. hal saltsman says the h 1b visa

is operational used in the tech field to keep salaries down. thanks for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> you heard viveck, employees are on that h 1b, they can't get a green card and leave the employee that they'remploy theyy speaking wages for h 1b workers are higher than american workers. >> that's not actually true. let me start with my long term friend viveck, talk about where we agree where about 15% of the demand is for the quote talent pool. viveck and i agree that some place in silicon valley there's a demand for global -- >> he says about 20,000 you know out of the 85,000 a year that we

bring in. >> okay, so we're in the same ballpark. so if we wanted to limit 20,000 people earning over $100,000 a year for the talent problem solved. but that's not what this debate is about. the debate is about the other 60 to 100, $150,000 that the industry wants for the low paid jobs for the tech industry in the 60 to 60,000. there is no evidence that they are paid more. in fact what we know the h 1b is used for primarily not the silicon valley not the googles but the predominant use is two functions, one is low cost labor and the second is to facilitate off-shoring of jobs. my research shows the source for that as we cited is the companies themselves. so if we go to the sec filings of these companies not their public relations department but you go to the statements they make that they are held legally

accountable for, without the h h-1b visas, we would have to do more work in the u.s -- >> hang on a second. let's unpack a couple of these things. >> sure. >> let's go back to the rough number you and viveck agree on. h 1b earn 76,356 versus u.s. born workers earning 67,000. we can corroborate that with the bureau of labor statistics, labor department, the u.s. immigration services, studies show at least h 1b workers. >> ali i'm sorry we have to back up to that. i know that study very well. >> you're talking about the brookings study? >> yes, we need to consider a couple of things about that study. brookings is a great place, lot of great people there. new york times and washington

post have done separately investigative reports and in the last year brook having changed its business model. it does high work and work for hire, identified that -- >> i'll concede the point. >> the washington post identified this specific study, as something that the washington post claimed was work for hire. >> hal i'll give you the win on this bus here's the thing when we did further research we looked on the bls bureau of labor statistics run by the department of labor, same thing 76,270 for computer occupations, when we went to the u.s. immigration service, 83,000, the point is here are two -- unless you think that the government is changing its number. >> that's not exactly accurate. you were probably looking at the applications. the actually h 1b workers, 67% earned 60 to 67,000. >> i'm only speaking about that

20,000 that you and viveck are talking about . the foreign workers on the h 1b are earning more than american workers, you might think that's right or wrong, that they are driving wages down, it should have the opposite effect, driving wages up. >> we are not talking about native workers. immigration is a separate issue. the question we really have to ask here this is very important. when an employer goes to hire do they hire from the domestic pool of workers which is citizen immigrant native and permanent resident, right? anybody they can hire off the street or do they go to the special pool of workers that congress has created which are guest workers? the relevant number is between the guest workers versus the entire pool. you find there's about a 20% labor savings in the guest worker pool? right? so the u.s. census what we have

created. >> the numbers we have created to you, showing the opposite, showing that the h 1b workers, i'm throwing out the brookings study per your instruction. i'm only look at bureau of labor statistics and u.s. immigration services, the next one i'm showing my viewers is u.s. cis. that number is higher than the corresponding group thraw talk about, the americans who you can hire off the street. >> they don't earn more if you look at the same occupations, you know apples to apples comparison. it's not exactly the opinion because i'll agree with viveck. there is a small percentage of highly talented workers that we want. using viveck's numbers, i'll go with one-third the question is why are we trying the increase the allocation for the rest?

>> 3 in 10 scientists for the american association for advancement of science says that veevisas, as competitive as it s been historical because we are not graduating stem workers at the highly educated stem workers at the rate that america needs. >> you know that's a very good point i'm glad you brought that up. if we look at stem workers as a group we graduate twice as many stem workers as tiend a jo find. the u.s. bureau of census says only one in three stem degree holders have a stem i don't know. let's start about the science in particular because that's a very important workforce. the national institutes of health, the largest funder of science in this country says its number 1 problem is too many

ph.d. level scientists for the number of good jobs available. so nih just launched a couple of years ago, a multimillion dollar program to help ph.d. scientists find alternative jobs. that is nih is spending millions of dollars to help its ph.d. scientists to help find jobs outside the science field. >> remained at about 40% since twick. i'm just asking you, you know more than i do, why are government sources so different than what you are saying. >> the conference board is not a government source. nih -- >> where we use data on -- >> you're saying business groups? >> yes. >> use these sources for obvious reasons but i don't think we should confuse a business group position paper looking for lower-cost labor for what the national institutes of health says it's biggest problem is.

national institutes of health, the largest source of science discoveries and they say the problem is that we have too many ph.d. scientists for the jobs available. i don't think that fits with the kind of public relations statements that you're citing from business groups. we need to take the business groups' statements for what they are which is -- >> we have to continue this conversation later but i'd like to actually have you back to have that conversation about stem and what role congress should be having on that. thank you for the conversation on h 1b visas, hal salt saltsma. how yore load can become a nightmare. nightmare.

>> rights of people who recognize that america's immigration system is broken include everyone from politicians to pundits to the 11 million undocumented workers living in america. also immigration judges who are overwhelmed and overworked. no wonder the background of immigration cases increased 30% last year alone. the problem is that we are catching moor people risking their lives to sneak into

america but very little money and attention is being paid to the courts that actually process and adjudicate their cases. the overload is felt by courts and lawyers. >> cases come in and rarely go out. i'm approaching my 1,000th case. hundreds are cases are on hold. >> jason dubald deals with cases from war torn nations, thousand their wait is even longer. congress has mandated that immigrants from central america get priority in court. which bumps asylum seekers back to 2019 and beyond. >> it wants to move their cases more quickly also the government is concerned that drawing the cases out will draw an incentive for more people to come into the united states. >> a record high of more than

456,000 cases are waiting to be heard in immigration courts. it is the highest ever since they began tracking cases in 1998. >> it's due to many things, but money going to [ ayes ] toimmigration and customs enforcement, and to immigration justice system and that would mean going through immigration judges. . >> there aren't enough judges going around and not fluff money to keep up. money going to border enforcement increased 105% in the last 12 years to $18.7 billion. immigration court spending has risen too but not as much. it's up 74% to almost $350 million. it's an issue that divides but it's also the one thing both sides can agree open. >> it's a system that's broken that needs fixing. >> fix an immigration system

that clearly does not work anymore. >> today our immigration system is broken. >> last year president obama announced a an executive order to allow undocumented workers without a criminal record who have lived in the united states for at least five years to apply to stay in the country legally. >> you can come out of the shadows and get right with the law. >> some republican opponents said it was essentially amnesty for what they call law breakers. it isn't the last of the president's attempt to alleviate some of the pressure on the system. immigration court judges are frankly fed up. >> we have been asked to do more with less over and over and over and when you do more with less your reward should be more, you're expected to do more and more. it's an incredible amount of burnout for the judges. >> representing immigration judges across the u.s. the 250

or so judges handle around 1500 cases each. a normal workload is around 500 cases. last year, president obama requested $3.7 billion in emergency funding to deal with the surge of children and families coming in from south america. >> this is what a large chunk of this would be devoted towards, hiring judges and ice officials to address the backlog that has crept up in recent months. >> but the money never played it to the courts. the 2016 budget for immigration judges includes another $124 million to among other things hire 55 new immigration judges and several hundred support staff. but -- >> we believe we need much more than that, probably double that at least to start and the problem is this: their hiring

takes so long that by the time you get more judges in you have more judges retiring it comes out as a wash. >> in a surprise interview her boss the head of the executive office for immigration review told a local nbc filled the same same thing. the immigration system is broken. >> resulting in hiring freezes for the federal government which for us was a disaster. >> the disaster stands to get only worse. with half of all immigration judges eligible for retirement and no financial relief in sight. >> that's our show for today. starting monday this show moves to 9:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. set your dvr. the news continues here on al jazeera. zeera.

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