The Anatomy of Public Corruption

Showing posts with label Elevation Partners. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elevation Partners. Show all posts

Elevation Partners and National Association of Realtors

Connecting Elevation Partners to Alston Bird to Realtor.com to 

 
The folks at TPG will have to answer my Whistleblower Complaints on the truly odd collection of RFPs emanating from companies connected to Richard Blum, William McGlashan, CBRE, Regency Centers, Trammel Crow, Lennar, Catellus.


Plaintiffs:

Defendants:

Witnesses:

Cause of Action: 

The Investors:
TPG Growth

TPG Global

Other Actions

Elevation Partners  
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Silverlake Partners, NYFed, AT&T and Building 7



One of the key reasons I have focused on Silverlake partners is the connection to the New York fed, the connection to Glenn Hutchins of AT&T oh, the highly of it in connection to Elevation partners and also litigation involving HomeStore a case apparently pretty fraudulent next to Wilson sonsini and that leads to mulesoft, Salesforce and yours truly the oracle versus Salesforce hostile takeover.

One key part of that is the connection a former CEO Steve burd of Safeway and his relationship with attorney Richard Stanford Kopf.

In the 1980s Safeway was a customer of Mainframe designs cabinet fixtures owned by Pete Bennett who developed fixtures for Safeway Wells Fargo Bank of America and many other well-known enemies.

His lawsuit ended in Flames when they killed his witness in 1989 it was covered up with the help of Sheriff Richard Rainey because when you control the coroner's office he don't count very well when the body start stacking up.







Industry
Private equity
Founded1999; 21 years ago
FounderJim Davidson, David Roux, Roger McNameeGlenn Hutchins
HeadquartersMenlo ParkCaliforniaUnited States
Number of locationsMultiple offices in 3 countries
Key peopleMike Bingle
Egon Durban
Ken Hao
Greg Mondre
Joe Osnoss
ProductsInvestment funds
AUMUS$43 billion (2020)[1]
Websitewww.silverlake.com
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Bono, Silverlake, Wilson Sonsini, Salesforce, PeopleSoft

So I sued Southern Pacific in 87 I lost when someone killed my witness who was a 21 year old man from Walnut Creek.

It seems my histories constantly criss-crosses with litigation near Wilson sonsini, PG&E bill Tauscher of computerland and former Safeway CEO Steve Burd with additional crossovers into Blackhawk Network Silverlake partners elevation partners and also CEO Philip Anschutz, Michael Milken of the junk Bond theme, and his friend Larry Ellison former CIA programmer that probably knows who killed my Witnesses and my friends in 1975.

 in the middle of this is a company called FICO, a virus called nimda that could have very well been created by CIA experts the ones that lost all all they're spooked tools at the CIA who would easily know how to execute a virus to propagate around the the globe that would work especially well if you have an unwitting Insider parked in front of 3,000 servers at SBC with a virus likes to look at servers and explode from there




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Stanford University Law School - Securities Class Action Clearinghouse

 

BRUCE G. VANYO, State Bar # 060134
LAURIE B. SMILAN, State Bar # 116740
DAVID PRIEBE, State Bar # 148679
MICHELE E. ROSE, State Bar # 154656
SUSAN BOWER, State Bar # 173244
WILSON SONSINI GOODRICH & ROSATI
Professional Corporation
650 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, California 94304-1050
Telephone: (650) 493-9300

Attorneys for Defendants

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

DAVID T. O'NEAL TRUST, DATED 4/1/77
and TAMMY NEWMAN, On Behalf of
Themselves and All Other Similarly Situated,

                      Plaintiffs,

           v.

VANSTAR CORPORATION, RICHARD H.
BARD, WILLIAM Y. TAUSCHER, JAY S.
AMATO, ROBERT C. KUNTZENDORF,
JEFFREY S. RUBIN, RICHARD N.
ANDERSON, CHRIS M. LANEY,
MICHAEL J. MOORE, AHMAD
MANSHOURI, COLEMAN D. SISSON,
THANOS M. TRIANT, E.M. WARBURG,
PINCUS & CO., INC., WARBURG PINCUS
& CO., L.P., STEWART K. P. GROSS,
WILLIAM H. JANEWAY and JOHN L.
VOGELSTEIN,

                      Defendants.
______________________________________


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CASE NO.: C-98-0216-MJJ

CLASS ACTION

MEMORANDUM OF POINTS
AND AUTHORITIES IN
OPPOSITION TO
PLAINTIFFS' MOTION TO
STRIKE EXHIBITS
SUBMITTED IN SUPPORT
OF DEFENDANTS' MOTION
TO DISMISS

[filed c. Oct. 23, 1998]

Date: November 3, 1998
Time: 9:30 a.m.
Court: Honorable
      Martin J. Jenkins

INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs have moved to strike certain documents submitted with Vanstar's motion to dismiss: Vanstar's 1997 Form 14A ("Form 14A") and a calculation of stock sales by Vanstar's officers and directors ("Appendix"), which is taken directly from publicly filed SEC documents upon which plaintiffs rely. Plaintiffs argue that these documents are "outside" the Complaint, and therefore cannot be considered on a motion to dismiss. Plaintiffs also argue that the documents constitute inadmissible hearsay.

Plaintiffs' arguments are ill-founded. Under the Private Securities Litigation Act of 1995, plaintiffs must plead specific facts giving rise to a strong inference of each defendant's required state of mind (i.e., scienter), or the Complaint must be dismissed. Plaintiffs attempt to plead scienter by arguing that the individual defendants' stock sales were unusual or suspicious. The documents in question simply assist the Court in analyzing the judicially noticeable information provided by plaintiffs. Courts in securities class action cases routinely take judicial notice of SEC filings -- including documents which demonstrate that stock sale allegations are false -- and will dismiss allegations which are inconsistent with the filings. It is contrary to the Reform Act, and palpably unfair, for plaintiffs to claim that the documents must be excluded from the Court's consideration, while at the same time averring that their stock sale allegations taken from the same documents, which may be judicially noticed, give rise to a strong inference of scienter. Thus, the Court should deny plaintiffs' motion; or, if the Court is inclined to strike these documents, it should also strike plaintiffs' stock sale allegations.

Moreover, the documents are not "outside" the Complaint as they deal directly with allegations in the complaint. The law is clear that the mere fact that plaintiffs neglect to attach documents integral to their complaint does not render such documents "outside" a complaint, nor preclude the Court from considering the documents in a motion to dismiss. The Form 14A reveals the stock ownership of Vanstar's most senior management, ownership that is at the heart of plaintiffs' scienter allegations. Likewise, the Appendix was prepared directly from the Forms 3 and 4 filed with the SEC, which plaintiffs clearly used in drafting the Complaint (there is no other ultimate source from which plaintiffs could have obtained otherwise confidential information regarding the individual defendants' stock sales and holdings). Plaintiffs cannot seriously complain about a chart that was prepared to assist the Court in analyzing judicially noticeable information that was first provided by plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs' hearsay objection also is misplaced. Plaintiffs waived any such objection by choosing to include in their Complaint stock sale allegations in the first instance. Moreover, to the extent the Form 14A is referenced for the truth of the matters asserted therein, it is admissible under the business records exception to the hearsay rule. Finally, as plaintiffs themselves admit, the documents at issue were not offered solely for their truth value: rather, they are also offered to indicate the individual defendants' state of mind., i.e., were they selling or retaining significant portions of their net worth in the securities of the Company.

ARGUMENT

I. THE COURT MAY TAKE JUDICIAL NOTICE OF THE DOCUMENTS

    A. Courts Routinely Take Judicial Notice of SEC Filings.

When deciding motions to dismiss, courts routinely take judicial notice of, or otherwise consider, documents other than the complaint.1 Indeed, the great weight of authority holds that SEC filings are properly considered when deciding a motion to dismiss, and that those filings are properly the subject of judicial notice. Seee.g.Wenger v. Lumisys, Inc., 2 F. Supp. 2d 1231, 1240 n.8 (N.D. Cal. 1998) (denying plaintiff's motion to strike documents filed with the SEC, specifically Form 4s showing the actual number of shares sold during the class period); In re Silicon Graphics Securities Lit., 970 F. Supp. 746, 758 (N.D. Cal. 1997) (court may take judicial notice of the contents of relevant public disclosure documents required to be filed with the SEC) (quoting Kramer v. Time Warner, Inc., 937 F.2d 767, 774 (2d Cir. 1991)); In re Gupta Corp. Sec. Litig., 900 F. Supp. 1217, 1228 (N.D. Cal. 1994) ("[T]he court may review 'public disclosure documents required by law to be and which actually have been filed with the SEC.'") (quotation omitted); Shaw v. Digital Equipment Corp., 82 F.3d 1194, 1206 n. 13, 1220 (1st Cir. 1996) ("In deciding a motion to dismiss a securities action, a court may properly consider the relevant entirety of a document integral to or explicitly relied upon in the complaint, even though not attached to the complaint, without converting the motion into one for summary judgment."); Lovelace v. Software Spectrum Inc., 78 F.3d 1015, 1018 (5th Cir. 1996) ("When deciding a motion to dismiss a claim for securities fraud on the pleadings, a court may consider the contents of relevant public disclosure documents which (1) are required to be filed with the SEC and (2) are actually filed with the SEC.").2

    B. Courts May Take Judicial Notice of Documents "Outside" the Complaint.

Plaintiffs also assert that the subject documents do not fall within the scope of judicial notice because they are "outside" the Complaint. See Plaintiffs' Brief at 3-4. It is well settled, however, that a document need not be attached to a complaint in order for a court to properly consider it when deciding a motion to dismiss. In re Syntex Corp. Sec. Litig., 95 F.3d 922, 926, 929 (9th Cir. 1996) ("When deciding a motion to dismiss, a court may consider the complaint and 'documents whose contents are alleged in a complaint and whose authenticity no party questions, but which are not physically attached to the pleading.'") (quoting Branch v. Tunnell, 14 F.3d 449, 454 (9th Cir. 1994)).3

Here, the authenticity of the subject documents is not truly disputed, and their contents are integral to the Complaint. The Form 14A reveals the stock ownership of Vanstar's senior most management and plaintiffs have made this ownership a central issue of the Complaint. Likewise, the Appendix was prepared directly from the Forms 3 and 4 which are the exact documents plaintiffs used to draft the Complaint.4 All that Defendants have done here is present the same judicially noticeable, integral information plaintiffs have included in their Complaint in such a way as to assist the Court.5

II. THE SUBJECT DOCUMENTS ARE NOT INADMISSIBLE HEARSAY

Plaintiffs contend that even if the exhibits are properly the subject of judicial notice, the Court may not consider them because they may not be submitted to disprove scienter and because they constitute hearsay. See Plaintiffs' Brief at 4-6. Plaintiffs similarly argue that cases which have judicially noticed SEC filings have only taken judicial notice of the fact that the documents were filed or where the misrepresentations were contained in those documents. Id. at 4-5. For three reasons, plaintiffs are wrong.

First, as shown above, plaintiffs themselves have alleged the truth of the matters asserted in the documents. Their Complaint alleges that the individual defendants sold particular amounts of stock, at particular prices, on particular dates. It also alleges that the individual defendants sold particular (albeit inflated) percentages of their stock holdings. Complaint ¶¶ 138-141. Thus, plaintiffs cannot complain if and when Defendants refer to the same SEC filings, or information extracted from the filings for the truth of the matters asserted therein. This is precisely the reason that courts have taken judicial notice of stock sales in securities cases. See Silicon Graphics, 970 F. Supp. at 759 ("Having raised questions about defendants' stock sales, [and] based their allegations on defendants' SEC filings . . . plaintiffs can hardly complain when defendants refer to the same information in their defense."); Wenger at 1240 n.8 (denying plaintiff's motion to strike documents filed with the SEC, specifically Form 4s showing the actual number of shares sold during the class period); see also United States v. Anderson, 532 F.2d 1218, 1229 (9th Cir. 1976) (defendant who introduced hearsay statement waived objection).

Second, the exhibits are offered not only for their truth value, but also to demonstrate the state of mind of the individual defendants. As such, they are excepted from the hearsay rule. Fed. R. Evid. 803(3). Plaintiffs admit that these documents would demonstrate state of mind, if accepted by the Court. Pl. Br. at 6. Plaintiffs attempt to plead the individual defendants' state of mind by asserting that each of them intended to sell unusual amounts of Vanstar stock, rather than retaining his or her shares and stock options. Thus, the documents are relevant to plaintiffs' state of mind theory.

Third, the Form 14A is admissible under the business records exception to the hearsay rule. See Fed. R. Evid. 803(6). For a memorandum or record to be admissible as a business record, it must be: (1) made by a regularly conducted business activity; (2) kept in the "regular course" of that business; (3) "the regular practice of that business to make the memorandum, and (4) made by a person with knowledge or from information transmitted by a person with knowledge." Clark v. City of Los Angeles, 650 F.2d 1033, 1036-37 (9th Cir. 1981) (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 803(6). The Form 14A was prepared by persons with knowledge of the facts contained therein, kept in the ordinary course of Vanstar's business, and required by law to be prepared and submitted to the SEC. Moreover, Vanstar relied on the preparation of those documents in its business; it was required by law to disclose proxy and officer stock sale information. Accordingly, all of the requisites of the business records exception are satisfied. See United States v. Childs, 5 F.3d 1328, 1333 (9th Cir. 1993) (documents properly admitted as business records notwithstanding defendant's objections that the circumstances surrounding preparation of documents indicated a lack of trustworthiness, and that documents were not made in regular course of business); United States v. Bland, 961 F.2d 123, 126-27 (9th Cir. 1992) (firearm registration form required by law properly admitted as business record; "the person completing [the form] had knowledge of the transaction at the time it occurred and [the document] was maintained as a regularly conducted business activity as required by law."); Keogh v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 713 F.2d 496, 499 (9th Cir. 1983) (card dealer's diary containing personal financial records properly admitted as business record; "Witlock's diary, even though personal to him, shows every indication of being kept 'in the [ordinary] course of' his own 'business activity,' 'occupation, and calling.' . . . The reliability usually found in records kept by business concerns may be established in personal business records if they are systematically checked and regularly and continually maintained.").

III. IT WOULD BE CONTRARY TO THE REFORM ACT TO STRIKE THE DOCUMENTS

Under the heightened pleading requirements of the Reform Act, plaintiffs must allege facts sufficient to create a strong inference of scienter on the part of each defendant. See Securities Exchange Act of 1934 §§21D(b)(2), (3), 15 U.S.C. §§78 u-4(b)(2), (3). Plaintiffs attempt to meet this burden to plead the individual defendants' state of mind by arguing that those persons engaged in unusual or suspicious trading. Plaintiffs' Mem. of Points & Auth. in Opposition to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss at 19-21. Nevertheless, plaintiffs contend that the actual stock sale information included in the Defendants' exhibits should not be considered.

Plaintiffs are wrong. As the Reform Act imposes an affirmative duty on plaintiffs to present a complaint that provides a strong inference of scienter, it is only logical that "plaintiffs bear the burden of showing that any such sales are in fact unusual," when they rely on stock sale allegations to plead scienter. In re Health Mgm't Sys., Inc. Sec. Litig., No. 97-CIV-1865(HB), 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8061, at *18 (S.D.N.Y. May 28, 1998). Thus, plaintiffs cannot merely plead their conclusion that the stock sales are "suspicious" or "unusual." Instead, they must plead information indicating (1) the number of shares and options each defendant retained, and (2) each defendants' past pattern of sales, so that the "suspicious" or "unusual" nature of the sales in question can be discerned. Securities Exchange Act of 1934 §§21D(b)(1), (2), 15 U.S.C. §§ 78u-4(b)(1), (2) (Reform Act requires plaintiffs to set forth the factual basis of allegations made on information and belief).

Thus, the Court is entitled to take judicial notice of those documents to determine if, as the Vanstar Defendants allege, they refute plaintiffs' allegations. In re Silicon Graphics, Inc. Sec. Litig., 970 F. Supp. 746, 751 (N.D. Cal. 1997 ("[T]he court need not accept as true allegations that contradict facts that have been judicially noticed."). Conversely, if the exhibits are not considered, neither should plaintiffs' stock sale allegations. Seee.g.Duncan v. Pencer, 1996 WL 19043, at *12 (S.D.N.Y. 1996) (absent stock sale information, no inference of unusual or suspicious sales may be drawn).

CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, the motion to strike should be denied in its entirety; or, if the Court is inclined to strike the Subject Documents, it should also strike plaintiffs' stock sale allegations.

Dated: October __, 1998

WILSON, SONSINI, GOODRICH & ROSATI

By:___________________________________
     Susan Bower
Attorneys for Defendants




1 Seee.g.Kottle v. Northwest Kidney Centers, 146 F.3d 1056, 1064 n. 7 (9th Cir. 1998) (declining to treat Rule 12(b)(6) motion as summary judgment motion despite district court's consideration of affidavit whose "sole purpose was to put before the Court certain public records of the Department" for which court could take judicial notice); Emrich v. Touche Ross & Co., 846 F.2d 1190, 1198 (9th Cir. 1988) (declining to treat Rule 12(b)(6) motion as summary judgment motion despite district court's consideration of declaration requesting judicial notice of certain matters in public record, including other related proceedings).

2 Plaintiffs' citation to In re Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sec. Lit., No. C-89-20351, 1990 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18740 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 20, 1990), in support of their argument that the Court may not take judicial notice of the documents in question is more than a little misleading: the Court in that case declined to take judicial notice of certain SEC filings because the relevant SEC filings already were attached to the complaint by plaintiffs, and hence no judicial notice of those documents was necessary. Id. at *6. It is also curious that plaintiffs would cite Haltman v. Aura Systems, Inc., 844 F. Supp. 544, 550 (C.D. Cal. 1993), as the Court in that case merely decided that it could dismiss plaintiffs' claims without the necessity of reviewing the documents submitted for judicial notice.

3 See also In re Stac Elecs. Sec. Litig., 89 F.3d 1399, 1405 n. 4 (9th Cir. 1996) ("[D]ocuments whose contents are alleged in a complaint and whose authenticity no party questions, but which are not physically attached to the pleading may be considered in ruling [under] Rule 12(b)(6) Motion to Dismiss.") (quotation omitted); Fecht v. Price Co., 70 F.3d 1078, 1080 n.1 (9th Cir. 1995); In re Verifone Sec. Litig., 11 F.3d 865, 868 n.2 (9th Cir. 1993); Branch, 14 F.3d at 453 ("The leading commentators state that 'when [the] plaintiff fails to introduce a pertinent document as part of his pleading, [the] defendant may introduce the exhibit as part of his motion attacking the pleading.'") (quoting 5 Charles A. Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure: Civil ' 1327, at 762-63 (2d ed.1990)).

4 Plaintiffs admit that they reviewed Vanstar's SEC filings in drafting their Complaint. Complaint ¶ 160. In any event, any contention that the stock trading data alleged in the Complaint was obtained from sources other than Forms 4s is highly implausible (and no such other sources are disclosed). If Vanstar and its officers had not been required to disclose their trades and stock holdings in the SEC filings, the information would be protected from disclosure by the Article I of the California Constitution. Silicon Graphics, 970 F. Supp. at 758 (the trading "allegations can be derived only from the[] publicly-filed documents," any credible financial publications themselves must derive information concerning the personal financial affairs of executives from the SEC filings).

5 Nor may plaintiffs contend that they genuinely dispute the accuracy of the exhibits at issue. The purpose of judicial notice is to avoid unnecessary costs associated with establishing a fact that "is not really disputable." 1 Weinstein's Evidence ¶ 201[03] at 201-24 (1996). Courts have rejected such attempts to circumvent the principles of judicial notice. See Silicon Graphics, 970 F. Supp. at 758 (rejecting theory where plaintiffs' challenge to accuracy of SEC forms submitted by the defendant was "weak," and there was no evidence presented which would cast doubt on those filings). Moreover, the Ninth Circuit has held that judicial notice may be taken of matters less trustworthy than SEC filings, where the matter is "capable of sufficiently accurate and ready determination." In Ritter v. Hughes Aircraft Co., 58 F.3d 454 (9th Cir. 1995), the Court held that the district court properly took judicial notice of widespread layoffs at Hughes Aircraft based on a newspaper article: "judicial notice of layoffs at Hughes was not an abuse of discretion [because] [t]his is a fact which would be generally known in Southern California and which would be capable of sufficiently accurate and ready determination." Id. at 458-59.




Source: File to epost from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
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Elevation Partners

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A BONO NONO Connecting Elevation Partners to Alston-Bird to TREN Technologies to MOVE, Inc and the attempted murder(s) on Pete Bennett

Connecting Elevation Partners to Alston-Bird to TREN Technologies to MOVE, Inc to attempts of the life of Pete Bennett

On or About June 2008, attorneys from Alston Birds offices in Charlotte South Carolina with the words "Do you remember the proposal you wrote for Kevin Keithley", yeah he never paid and flaked out. 
On March 22, 2005, as its first major venture Elevation attempted to purchase Eidos Interactive.[3] However, its bid failed and the video games giant was sold to rival SCi Entertainment.[4] On November 3, 2005, Elevation invested $300 million to create an alliance between video game developers BioWare and Pandemic Studios, making it one of the biggest independent developers in the world. It also invested $100 million in Move, Inc., which operates real estate information services.


FORBES and 
In August 2006, Elevation announced that it had made an investment in Forbes Media, the parent company of Forbes magazine and Forbes.com.[5] Sources stated that the deal gave Elevation a stake of more than 40 percent at a cost of $250 million to $300 million.[6][7] After Elevation invested in Forbes, the employee pension plan was frozen.[8] In the years that followed, there were numerous rounds of layoffs worldwide.[9] The Forbes family also sold its iconic building on Manhattan's 5th Avenue to New York University.[10]

My story is about witness murders, private equity, mergers and acquisitions linked back to the Matter of Bennett v. Southern Pacific lost in 1989.  It was a winnable case as long the witnesses testified.  
xxxx2

Charlotte


Bank of America Plaza 101 South Tryon Street Suite 4000
Charlotte, NC 28280-4000
United States of America
P: 704.444.1000
F: 704.444.1111


#128 Philip Anschutz

REAL TIME NET WORTH
$11B
as of 3/28/19
  • Over five decades Philip Anschutz has built fortunes in oil, railroads, telecom, real estate and entertainment.
  • He owns the NHL's Kings and a third of the Lakers, plus the building they play in, the Staples Center.
  • His Anschutz Entertainment Group operates more than 100 arenas and concert venues worldwide.
  • On 300,000 acres he owns in Wyoming, Anschutz aims to build the world's biggest wind farm.
  • Has given $2 billion to charity, including $300 million to the University of Colorado's Anschutz Medical Campus.

9,724 views

Applications For H-1B Visa Comparable To The Size Of Marin County, California, Population





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Infosys employees during a lunch break in Bangalore, India. Indian nationals are the highest recipients of the often maligned H-1B visa. U.S. companies complain that the U.S. has a massive shortfall in STEM graduates and young experts who can fill employment holes. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi, File)
When President Donald Trump says he wants higher skilled workers to immigrate to the United States, he is basically talking about one visa: the H-1B. It’s as loved as it is despised, and its applicant pool in 2018 totaled around 200,000 applications filed by companies looking for foreign workers. To put that into perspective, Salt Lake City has 200,544 inhabitants, and Marin County, one of the richest counties in the Bay Area, has 260,955 inhabitants.
“U.S. employers told us that they are looking to hire more foreigners this year because they cannot find what they are looking for in the local market,” says Richard Burke, CEO of Envoy Global, a global immigration services provider founded in 1998 when the H-1B was bringing in around 150,000 foreign workers in science, technology, engineering and math-related fields (STEM). Their Immigration Trends 2019 report was released on Tuesday. “Trump says he wants more skilled labor coming to the U.S., but there will be no immigration deal with Congress. It all gets swallowed up by illegal immigration,” he says.

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Former President Bill Clinton greatly increased the number of H-1B visas, but increases were phased out and haven’t gone up since. Credit: Mark Reinstein /MediaPunch /IPX
The H-1B has been the source of disdain for many years. Older, American-born tech workers say they have been displaced by foreigners, or have had their workloads outsourced to the main recipients of the visa—the Indian IT firms led by Infosys, Tata Consulting Services, Wipro and Cognizant, which is New Jersey-based but maintains a sizable talent pool in India.
Many of the complaints come from American tech workers of a certain age, usually over 40, who are replaced by younger, cheaper employees. These foreign nationals are often required to work overtime without extra pay, making them exciting to U.S. companies who are not responsible for their pay, and making them a nice bonus to a company’s balance sheet.
Infosys H-1B recipients that have worked for U.S. companies like CVS have filed claims against the Indian company for forced overtime. These are the things that have given the visa a bad name.
H-1B issues used to be greater in number. They collapsed in the Bill Clinton presidency because the legislation at the time was only for a temporary increase. Today there are 65,000 H-1B visas issued to recent foreign graduates from STEM programs in the U.S. Most of them are Chinese and Indian nationals. Then there are 20,000 more visas issued to foreign nationals with advanced degrees. Most of them are Indian nationals.
According to data from the 2017 World Economic Forum, China produces nearly 5 million STEM graduates, India churns out 2.6 million and the U.S. around 568,000, of which well over half are foreign nationals from .... China and India.
“I have two sons. Sadly, none of them are STEM students,” says Burke. “The growth in STEM fields is growing as technology becomes more pervasive throughout society, and we clearly do not have the head count to fill those jobs with local talent.”
Few American students pursue expertise in STEM fields. According to the Obama administration at the time, the U.S. had an inadequate pipeline of teachers skilled in those subjects as recently as 2015.
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Changes to legal immigration under specialty visas like the EB-5 real estate investor visa and the H-1B will be tied to law changes surrounding illegal migration, especially at the border. Trump will likely have to act alone. One issue that matters to U.S. firms looking to hire abroad is keeping work permits for spouses of foreign hires. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
The Immigration A-List
Changes to immigration laws have been bogged down in overly charged emotional arguments related to poor migrants crossing illegally into the U.S. That means legal immigration fixes become temporary, dependent on executive orders signed by the president. Executive Orders can be upended as soon as the Executive Branch leadership changes, making for inconsistent immigration law.
So far there have been two administrative changes to the H-1B visa rule. One change allows for companies to apply for visas on an abbreviated application. If their application is chosen in the lottery system, which is how H-1Bs are chosen, then companies fill out the traditional, complete application at that time instead of pre-lottery. This makes it cheaper and less time-consuming for companies to throw their names in a hat and hope for the best. The second change gives foreign masters degree students a shot at the visa. It used to be overweighted to international undergraduates. These changes go into effect next year.
The third change being discussed now is for the married H-1B recipient from abroad to get a workers permit—or H4 visa—for their spouse. Trump has publicly stated that he wants to undo the Obama-era H4 visa, a negative for the international H-1B workers who tend to be between the ages of 30 and 35 years old.
Immigrant advocates like to point out that foreign-born talent accounts for one in every 3.5 inventions in the U.S., a dramatic growth from the 1970s, when foreigners contributed one in 12 patents. That doesn’t mean any of them were on an H-1B visa.
Canada has seen a similar surge.
According to Envoy Global’s survey, the quest for foreign talent has not slowed. Eighty percent of the roughly 400 employers surveyed said they expect their foreign national head count to either increase or stay the same in 2019.
Forty-seven percent of employers said the visa application process has become more difficult, while only 18% said it had become less difficult. That is the largest margin between the two responses since Envoy started asking the question three years ago. Most of this is due to the Trump Administration responding to legal claims against Indian IT firms that have led to requests for more evidence-of-need by the U.S. firm looking to hire a non-U.S. worker.
According to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the average case processing time has increased by 91% since 2014. In turn, employee anxiety has also increased and the potentially delayed employee start dates makes it harder for hiring managers to plan.
Another key takeaway from the Envoy survey is that 66% of new hires get their “green card” so they can stay longer than the visa’s maximum six years allowance. Foreigners who get a green card are forced into contractual obligations and can be fined for leaving the company that sponsors them.
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Tech workers hold signs as they protest Trump administration policies in San Francisco on February 13, 2017. In the wake of the 2016 election, old-school, anti-capitalist activists and new-school, free-enterprise techies in the city are pushing aside their differences to take on a common foe. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Tech vs. Trump
When Trump won the election, tech companies immediately began protesting his immigration policies. While his policies were focused on illegal border crossers, a labor pool that is of little interest to tech companies, Silicon Valley quickly joined the chorus of anti-Trump activists calling for greater leniency in a country where leniency is already the order of the day.
But what Silicon Valley types were really worried about was the end of the H-1B. For human resources management and the C-suite, that meant they would have to reconsider where to do research and development, among other things.
“Toronto, Waterloo and Kitchener have created more tech jobs than San Francisco, Seattle and Boston combined,” says Burke, citing Canadian immigration data and data from CBRE Group. “If governments make it difficult for you to grow your engineering talent pool, companies will relocate,” he says.
Since Trump’s election, an increasing number of H-1B visas have gone to U.S. companies like Amazon and Deloitte instead of the long-dominant Indian IT firms.
Lastly, here’s another warning many people in Washington may not be fully tuned into yet: Beijing’s planned Greater Bay Area, a tri-city area in the warm south that includes English-speaking, high-culture, low-crime cities like Hong Kong, is aiming to be bigger and badder than Silicon Valley. What’s stopping companies there from hiring Taiwanese, Koreans and maybe even a few Americans to help them build better 5G, better holograms, better artificial intelligence and supercomputers than Americans? The Trump administration says it is worried about China beating the U.S. on key technological developments. He also says he wants more A-list immigration. That bodes well for the H-1B program. But serious changes to the program will require an act of Congress, and all of those acts will be tied to illegal immigration issues, issues where Trump and the opposition are light years apart.

For media or event bookings related to Brazil, Russia, India or China, contact Forbes directly or find me on Twitter at @BRICBreaker


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