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The European Union's new proposal aimed at fast-tracking the immigration process for workers in "highly skilled" is making some U.S. technology heavyweights nervous.

It's no secret that American tech firms prize vast quantities of H-1B temporary visas and permanent residency permits, otherwise known as green cards. The companies argue that these tools are necessary to bring in foreigners for positions they claim suffer from shortages of qualified Americans, particularly the foreign nationals who represent the majority of masters and Ph.D. graduates from U.S. universities in relevant technical fields.

Flag of the EU

Now they're concerned that unless Congress acts fast to increase the cap on those rapidly grabbed prizes, they'll soon lose out on foreign talent to EU countries.

The EU's proposal would provide a "fast-track" immigration program known as the "blue card"--a sort of green card competitor, offering card holders all EU social benefits--which will bring 20 million additional workers from Asia, Africa and Latin America over the next 20 years, according to various news reports. The plan's drafters hope to award workers the cards within one month to three months--a far cry from U.S. green cards, whose processing time averages 5 to 10 years.

"Europe has laid down a challenge to the United States Congress," Ralph Hellman, a lobbyist for the Information Technology Industry Council, said in a statement. "The EU will attract the best and brightest workers in the world if the United States continues to create new burdens to hiring these valuable workers."

ITI's members include Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Cisco Systems, IBM and Intel.

American tech companies may not have anything to get worked up yet, though. The EU has been considering such a move since 1999, and even now, the plan still must be ratified by all 27 member states, which would then set "quotas" based on their worker needs. It reportedly faces resistance from some major members, including the United Kingdom and Germany.

Meanwhile, proponents of increased U.S. visa quotas are also fuming this week over the U.S. Senate's approval of an amendment that increases by $3,500 the filing fees for employers seeking H-1B visas, which allow foreigners with at least a bachelor's degree in their area of specialty to work in the United States for up to six years. That bill must still be reconciled with a House of Representatives version, however, so that section may not survive in the end.

"Europe has sent a message. They are aggressively pursuing the professional talent they need to compete on the global stage," said Robert Hoffman, Oracle's vice president for governmental affairs and co-chairman of Compete America, a coalition of technology companies and pro-business groups. "The Senate has unfortunately also sent a message, and it doesn't bode well for the U.S. economy."

Editor's note: This story was updated at 10:53 a.m. PDT to clarify a description of IEEE-USA.

High-tech companies and groups representing American engineers are famous for clashing over whether it's a good idea to allow U.S. companies to hire more foreign workers on temporary H-1B visas.

But what's sometimes forgotten in the debate is a key point of agreement among at least some representatives of the warring sides. A new joint letter (click for PDF) to Congress from the Semiconductor Industry Association and IEEE-USA, the U.S. branch of the world's largest professional society of electronics engineers, seeks to remind politicos of that common ground, which is this: we need more green cards.

A massive immigration bill may have fallen flat over unrelated points of contention earlier this year, but the groups' leaders suggested Congress still has time to salvage green-card changes. Their wishlist goes something like this:

* Raise the cap for employer-sponsored green cards.
* Exempt from that quota are any foreigners who receive advanced degrees in math, science, engineering and technology fields from U.S. universities.
* Create a new foreign student visa category that allows foreigners who hold bachelor's or higher degrees in those fields and have a job offer in hand to go directly from a student visa to a green card.
* Oh, and while you're at it, exempt spouses and children of those green-card holders from the cap, too.

(The position isn't exactly new: SIA President George Scalise has long advocated issuing green cards to gifted students, and IEEE-USA has argued expanding the permanent immigration program is a more sustainable way of retaining a robust high-tech work force than the temporary H-1B technique.)

Right now, 51 percent of master's and 71 percent of Ph.D. graduates in electrical and electronic engineering from U.S. universities are foreign nationals, but the average green card applicant has to wait 5 to 10 years to gain permanent residency status, the letter argued. In the view of SIA and IEEE-USA, that's too long to wait if American companies want to remain globally competitive in science and tech fields, so foreign graduates in those realms should get special treatment.

Green cards offer more privileges--including the right to change jobs and become a naturalized U.S. citizen--than the "non-immigrant" H-1B visa, which can be renewed for up to six years but, as critics charge, makes visa holders "indentured servants" to the employers who hire them. The IEEE-USA has argued in the past that because of those key differences, green cards are less prone to abuse.

That view, however, is not universally shared. The Programmers Guild, a group that represents American computer programmers and has been especially hostile to H-1B increases, argues the changes sought by IEEE-USA, SIA and their ilk would be a green light for firms to hire foreigners instead of qualified Americans.

The proposal to create a new visa category to fast-track students into permanent resident status is also troublesome, said Kim Berry, the group's president. "These proposals would crowd American students out of U.S. universities as even getting (a) B.S. degree would be a virtual guaranteed path to U.S. citizenship," he said in an e-mail interview.

The immigration battle brews on Capitol Hill.

(Credit: U.S. Senate)

Much of life is timing. And in this case we have video of lawyers saying things that will only add more fuel to the already burning issues of immigration and controversial H-1B visas.

Speaking to his law firm's clients, Lawrence Lebowitz advises them, "Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker. And that, in a sense, that sounds funny, but it's what we're trying to do here."

A lawyer working with Lebowitz outlines what employers may have to do if a qualified U.S. citizen does apply for a job: "If necessary schedule an interview, go through the whole process to find a legal basis to disqualify them for this particular position."

Later a representative for a lawyer's professional group said the seminar from Lebowitz and friends was for employers who already had temporary foreign workers and wanted to make those workers permanent.

How do we, the public, get to hear this lawyerly advice? Video clips of this legal seminar have been posted on YouTube, of course. This, in turn, aroused significant attention and media coverage. This occurs as there's a heated battle in Washington D.C. over immigration law.

So we know that Lebowitz and his associates work for Cohen & Grigsby, a law firm with offices in Pittsburgh and Florida. Lebowitz is listed as a director on the firm's Web site. He's one of 14 associates of the firm who were recognized by Pennsylvania Super Lawyers 2007. C&G uses the motto "progressive law."

So Mr. Lebowitz seems to have leap-frogged his colleagues, going from advising lawyer to national celebrity, all via YouTube. And how did this happen? Somebody who apparently disapproved of Lebowitz's suggestions alerted a Californian who fights H-1B visas. At one time the entire presentation was posted online, deliberately, by C&G. From there the edited video got onto YouTube via ProgrammersGuild.org.

Although China's government has been mired in human rights problems for years, the bureaucrats do know a thing about customer service.

Communist party members have to undergo the "360" review process for promotions, the peer-review system that helps determine promotions at companies like Intel. (The party picked it up from U.S. corporations, Jian Daning, director of the Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone, told us a few years ago).

Customer service-rating tool

(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com)

Want to open a company here? The system for tax breaks for exporters is well mapped-out, and there are several regions offering deals on land in industrial parks.

And there's this handy screen at customs at the Beijing Capital International Airport. It allows visitors and returnees to rate the customer service given by the customs official at the desk. You push a button to indicate Greatly Satisfied, Satisfied, Checking Time Took Too Long or Poor Customer Service.

And you can rate the official before, or after, he stamps your passport and studies your visa. It's right there at the customs gate. I was in a fairly quick lane, and didn't get sent back to a sniffer dog, so I gave officer No. 30043 a Greatly Satisfied.