Nowhere to Go

　　For the latest on the pursuit of the American Dream in Silicon Valley, all you have to do is to talk to someone like “Nagaraj” (who didn’t want to reveal his real name). He’s an Indian immigrant who, like many other Indian engineers, came to America recently on an H-1B visa, which allows skilled workers to be employed by one company for as many as six years. But one morning last month, Nagaraj and a half dozen other Indian workers with H-1Bs were called into a conference room in their San Francisco technology-consulting firm and told they were being laid off. The reason: weakening economic conditions in Silicon Valley, “It was the shock of my lifetime,” says Nagaraj.

　　This is not a normal bear-market sob story. According to federal regulation, Nagaraj and his colleagues have two choices. They must either return to India, or find another job in a tight labor market and hope that the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) allow them to transfer their visa to the new company. And the law doesn’t allow them to earn a pay-check until all the paperwork winds its way through the INS bureaucracy. “How am I going to survive without any job and without any income?” Nagaraj wonders.

　　Until recently, H-1B visas were championed by Silicon Valley companies as the solution to the region’s shortage of programmers and engineers. First issued by the INS in 1992, they attract skilled workers from other countries, many of whom bring families with them, lay down roots and apply for the more permanent green cards. Through February 2000, more than 81,000 worker held such visas — but with the dot-com crash, many have been getting laid off. That’s causing mass consternation in U.S. immigrant communities. The INS considers a worker “out of status” when he loses a job, which technically means that he must pack up and go home. But because of the scope of this year’s layoffs, the U.S. government has recently backpedaled, issuing a confusing series of statements that suggest workers might be able to stay if they qualify for some exceptions and can find a new company to sponsor their visa. But even those loopholes remain nebulous. The result is thousands of immigrants now face dimming career prospects in America, and the possibilities that they will be sent home. “They are in limbo. It is the greatest form of torture,” says Amar Veda of the Silicon Valley-based Immigrants Support Network.

　　The crisis looks especially bad in light of all the heated visa rhetoric by Silicon Valley companies in the past few years. Last fall the industry won a big victory by getting Congress to approve an increase in the annual number of H-1B visas. Now, with technology firms retrenching, demand for such workers is slowing. Valley heavyweights like Intel, Cisco and Hewlett-Packard have all announced thousands of layoffs this year, which include many H-1B workers. The INS reported last month that only 16,000 new H-1B workers came to the United States in February — down from 32,000 in February of last year.

　　Last month, acknowledging the scope of the problem, the INS told H-1B holders “not to panic,” and that there would be a grace period for laid-off workers before they had to leave the United States. INS spokeswomen Eyleen Schmidt promises that more specific guidance will come this month. “We are aware of the cutbacks,” she says. “We’re trying to be as generous as we can be within the confines of the existing law.”

　　翻譯參考答案：

　　無家可歸

　　這不是正常的有市場疲軟而引發(fā)的悲劇故事。根據(jù)聯(lián)邦政府的規(guī)定，納加拉吉和他的同事有兩個(gè)選擇：要么立即回印度，要么在供過于求的勞動市場找到一份新工作，然后寄希望與移民規(guī)劃局把他們的簽證轉(zhuǎn)到他們的新公司去。在法律上，他不能有收入，除非他辦完移民局所有的手續(xù)之后。“沒有工作，沒有收入，我怎么生存呀?” 納加拉吉愁眉不展。

　　不久前，H-1B簽證還是硅谷各公司解決當(dāng)?shù)爻绦騿T和工程師短缺問題的香餑餑。H-1B簽證始于1992年，移民局希望通過簽發(fā)這種簽證來吸引其他國家的熟練工人來美工作。他們中的許多人帶著妻兒，落地生根，并申請有永久居住權(quán)的綠卡。截止到2000年2月，大約有8.1萬名工人持有這種簽證。但隨著網(wǎng)絡(luò)經(jīng)濟(jì)的崩潰，許多人遭到解雇。這導(dǎo)致了在美國移民社區(qū)的很大不安。當(dāng)一個(gè)工人丟了飯碗，移民局就認(rèn)為他“沒有身份樂”，在理論上，你可以認(rèn)為他必須卷起行李回家了。由于今年工人被解雇幅度太大，美國政府近來有所讓步，宣布了一系列模糊不清的政策，暗示如果他們符合某些特例并能找到一個(gè)公司為他們擔(dān)保簽證的話，他們還可以留下來。這一政策的結(jié)果就是數(shù)以千計(jì)的移民在美國面臨著暗淡的不確定的前景，甚至被突然遣送回家。“他們生活在地獄的邊緣，這也許是最痛苦的�！弊�落在硅谷的移民互助網(wǎng)絡(luò)組織的阿瑪·維達(dá)這樣認(rèn)為。

　　在過去的幾年里，硅谷的公司對這種H-1B的作用大肆吹捧，導(dǎo)致現(xiàn)在的情況更加糟糕。不久前，它們剛剛成功說服國會增加每年的H-1BQ簽證的簽發(fā)數(shù)量。但現(xiàn)在技術(shù)公司的緊縮使這一需求減慢。今年，硅谷的大公司如英特爾﹑思科和惠普都宣布裁員上千人，其中有許多H-1B簽證持有者。移民局上個(gè)月聲稱今年2月份有大約16，000名H-1B工人來到美國，大大低于去年2月份的32，000人。

　　上個(gè)月，了解到問題的嚴(yán)重性的美國移民局通知H-1B簽證持有者“不要驚慌”，在他們被迫離開美國之前，會有一個(gè)寬限期。移民局的女發(fā)言人埃侖·史密斯表示：“我們對裁員很清楚，這個(gè)月將有更多的導(dǎo)向性的政策出臺。我們將在現(xiàn)有法律允許的范圍里采取更寬容的政策�！�