Desi Diaspora, Immigrants News

NEW JERSEY: DEC 13: Immigration has accelerated, pushing the percentage of the U.S. population born in other countries to the highest point in nearly 100 years, says a report.

According to Center for Immigration Studies, there are 35.2 million foreign-born people living in the U.S. � about 12.1 percent of the population.

"The 35.2 million immigrants living in the country in March 2005 is the highest number ever recorded � two-and-a-half times the 13.5 million during the peak of the last great immigration wave in 1910," said the report, which advocates tougher policies on illegal immigration and favors attracting immigrants with needed job skills.

The report comes as the House prepares to take up a bill to curb undocumented immigration by requiring workplace enforcement of immigration laws and increasing border security. Illegal presence in the country, now a civil offense, would become a federal crime.

Bush's Temporary Guest Workers Program appears to have been put on the side burner for now.

The report estimates 9.7 million illegal immigrants are living in the United States. Other estimates range from 9 million to 13 million.

Mexico has been identified as the largest source of immigrants to the United States, followed by East Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, Central America and South America, according to the report.

A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center found that immigration peaked about 2000, then dipped in 2002 and 2003. Nevertheless, Jeffrey Passel, a research associate at the Pew Hispanic Center, said that immigration levels remained high, compared with historical levels.

Desi owned IT firm asked to pay extra $2.25m to H1-Bs

NEW JERSEY, DEC 12: IT services company Computech Corp. has agreed to pay $2.25 million in back wages and $400,000 in fines to settle a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) complaint that it underpaid 232 H-1B workers.

Michigan-based Computech - a Certified Minority Business Enterprise, will also be prohibited from participating in the H-1B visa program for 18 months under an agreement announced last week by DOL, reported ComputerWorld.

The firm was founded in 1996, and the settlement covers violations alleged to have occurred between 1998 and 2000.

Computech boasts on its website of having more than 400 consultants spread over USA, Canada and India, with 24-48 hour response time for staffing requests. Its philosophy: "Our solutions are the outcome of the synergistic contribution of our most-valued resource - Our People, ".

Within two years of its founding, the company had brought on more than 200 foreign workers. The company failed to pay these workers minimum required wage rates and �frequently� benched workers, the DOL said in a statement. Benching refers to the practice of not paying workers in between contracting jobs.

Vasudeva Patchava, a former Computech H1-B employee, said the company agreed to pay him at least $53,000 a year. Instead he received $35,000 a year.

With that salary, Patchava couldn't afford to buy a house and bring his family to Michigan, so they stayed with relatives for six months in Akron, Ohio, before they could reunite when the company moved him out of Michigan, said Detroit Free Press.

Despite agreeing to pay the back wages, Computech, which has done work for the City of Detroit and George Washington University in Washington, D.C., said it did nothing wrong.

Computech today has about 400 to 500 employees, according to its president, Indian-American Ram Kancharla.

Ram told Detroit Free Press his company is less dependent on H-1B workers today, but in 1998, there was a shortage of workers with the technology skills in Java- and Web-related work. Kancharla would not disclose the number of H-1B workers the company now uses but said most of the employees involved in the settlement have since left.

The firm, which handles ERP implementations, application support and development, and remote database management, does its work in India and the U.S. and has more than 200 employees based in the U.S.

Patchava stayed with Computech between 1999 and 2003. "I didn't want to go to a different employer and get into the same situation," said Patchava, 44, and now living in Cupertino, Calif. He also felt pressured to stick with Computech because the company sponsored his temporary visa.

Companies that hire large numbers of H-1B visa holders have been accused in the past of being �body shops� that underpay foreign workers and help U.S. firms move work overseas.

�Abuse of the temporary foreign worker program is not tolerated and violators, as this case shows, are vigorously pursued, � Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao said in a statement.

According to immigration law, those employees are entitled to a generally accepted wage for computer programmers for about 40 hours a week, even when they do not have assignments. The aim of the law, immigration law experts say, is so companies pay the prevailing wage and do not undercut wages paid to American workers.

H-1B worker visas are issued for up to six years.

The $2.65-million settlement is about $2 million less than what the Department of Labor said the company owed in March.

The settlement may be the largest back wage payment ordered under the H-1B program, according to Brad Mitchell, a DOL spokesman.

Racial riots hit Sydney

Helpless: A Middle Eastern man is attacked

DEC 12: Several thousand Australians, lured to a Sydney-area beach by a text-message campaign, rampaged against people of Middle Eastern appearance Sunday.

The violence on Cronulla Beach spread into several Sydney suburbs Sunday night, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

About 5,000 people came to the beach to "reclaim it," police said. While the gathering in the morning was peaceful, about 200 people in the crowd turned violent in the afternoon as the others cheered them on.

One man was hospitalized after being stabbed in the back.

Some of the rioters were draped in the Australian flag and the crowd sang the national anthem and "Waltzing Matilda." They also chanted "No more Lebs" -- local slang for Lebanese.

Two teenage girls born in Australia to immigrant parents were guarded by police officers as they waited for a train. They said they had been coming to the beach for years.

"We had to get out because everyone was telling us to go home," said Sarah Id, 17. "Both girls and guys were shouting at us and a woman told us to watch our backs."

Australian Prime Minister John Howard condemned the race-based attacks, but said they don't mean Australia is a racist nation.

"I do not accept there is underlying racism in this country," Mr Howard said following Sunday's race riots.

Mr Howard also dismissed any suggestion his government's warnings about home-grown terrorists had fuelled the rampage.

Sydney's Islamic community blamed the violence on "racist and irresponsible" sections of the media which turned a common youth issue into an issue of ethnicity.

Australia's small Muslim community has expressed feelings of alienation since the Iraq war, reporting racist verbal abuse and occasional assaults. Australia is a staunch US ally and was one of the first nations to commit troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Local Muslims have also expressed concern about recent new anti-terror laws, which they fear could target them, and warnings of home-grown terrorism by intelligence authorities.

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