Despite an intense lobbying campaign by the likes of Bill Gates, Congress didn't pass an H-1B increase or any other escalation in immigration.
Bill Gates started lobbying for the Skil bill months ago. He personally went to Washington D.C. twice, and an army of his paid K-Streeters swarmed Capitol Hill to buy votes. Bill Gates was so salient that the Skil Bill was nicknamed "Bill's Skil Bill". In addition Gates spent untold millions of dollars to buy votes in Congress.
Gates wasn't the only one to get slapped in the face. Hundreds of companies and cash-rich political action campaigns failed to open the flood gates to cheap labor.
Congress had one last chance to slip in an increase to the H-1B cap before the House and Senate voted in favor of the "United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act" (H.R. 5682) and (S. 3709) — more appropriately named "Nukes for Mangos" . John Boehner (R-OH) spearheaded a backdoor attempt to attach an H-1B increase to the bill but it was blocked by Sen. Biden (D-DE). At that point the clock ran out on the cheap labor lobby.
I wish I could have seen Bill Gates as the gavel closed on the 109th Congress! He was probably stomping his feet, clenching his fists, and having a temper tantrum.
Defeat of the Skil bill was a huge upset that wouldn’t have been possible without Roy Beck and his tireless team at NumbersUSA. They launched a full scale call-in campaign to stop increases to H-1B and another bill by Sen. Hutchison (R-TX) to increase visas for nurses by 100,000 per year. The uproar from NumbersUSA activists was too loud for the politicians to ignore.
It's time to celebrate!
