Matloff often makes reference to Sanchez's Web site, because it includes a database of H-1B salaries Sanchez obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

At Sanchez's site you can learn, for example, that Microsoft planned to pay an H-1B software engineer $34,000 in 1997, when the average computer engineer salary for that year was $56,590, according to the Labor Department.

A Microsoft spokesman said the salary of a particular guest worker might reflect the average of his colleagues at Microsoft rather than the industrywide average.

Microsoft's position is perfectly legal. But it highlights the point made by Matloff and others that guest workers frequently are mistreated by the H-1B program.

On this issue, once again, the GAO sides with Matloff. Its September report documents numerous cases of fraudulent applications and INS policy that discourage critical review of applications. What's more, the program is ripe for abuse by employers. The GAO noted that while companies have to pay guest workers a "prevailing wage," firms can use almost any source to determine that wage and the Labor Department is compelled to accept it.

The GAO also reported that the H-1B program creates a relationship between guest worker and employer that discourages whistle-blowing. H-1B workers are dependent on employers for their stay in this country, and many come with the expectation that their company will file a green card application on their behalf.

Matloff argues that the H-1B system has amounted to a form of "indentured servitude." Besides the GAO report, press accounts back up this assessment. In the past few years, newspapers including the Baltimore Sun and San Francisco Chronicle have written about the poor treatment received by H-1B workers. The worst abuses seem to occur at so-called body shops -- consulting outfits that outsource programmers to other firms. Body shops have been described as "benching" the guest workers, an illegal practice where they are not paid their full salary unless the firm has contract work.

The new legislation addresses some of the program's flaws. For example, H-1B workers will be able to switch employers more quickly. And those with long delays in the processing of their green card applications will be able to transfer to a new company.

But Matloff sees the potential for continued exploitation. It will still be possible for employers sponsoring a guest worker for a green card to foot-drag in the initial stages of the process. And even without foot-dragging, foreign workers are still effectively beholden to a firm for at least three to four years, he estimates.

Matloff admits the H-1B workers may earn much more here than they ever would in their homelands. But he draws an analogy to immigrant workers toiling in U.S. garment shops. "They're being exploited by American standards," he says.

Many H-1B workers beg to differ, particularly those who come from from less-developed nations. Indians are by far the single largest group of guest workers -- they make up nearly 43 percent of total H-1B applications -- and their stories often are dramatic. A computer programmer in India, for example, might make the equivalent of $10,000 to $15,000 a year. H-1B workers in computer-related jobs, by contrast, were slated to be paid a median wage of $53,000. And the salaries for some H-1B techies can soar to $80,000 or more.

But money isn't the only magnet for foreign engineers. The chance to do computer work on the cutting edge is also a huge draw, says Jayaram Manda, a 28-year-old H-1B programmer from India. Despite a burgeoning technology industry in Indian cities like Bangalore, the United States is the place graduates from India's prestigious universities want to go.

"This is the technology world," says Manda, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and works for a firm called the Consilium Group. "You read about something in the textbook, and you want to implement it."

While they may enjoy their work here, H-1B workers can face resentment from domestic techies. Aditya Agrawal, an H-1B chip designer at a Silicon Valley firm, has had colleagues accuse him of cutting into domestic wages and contributing to age discrimination.

"This is a tough industry. Tough things get said all over the place," he says.

Agrawal, 31, has an answer for his critics. He believes the H-1B program has kept U.S. tech salaries from falling, because the foreign workers have fueled Silicon Valley's success over the past decade. Without these skilled workers moving here, the software or Internet industries in places like Taiwan or India could have blossomed, he argues.

"I doubt it could have happened [here] without the best of the best coming here and working together to get things done," he says.

Matloff doesn't share Agrawal's theory. First, he disputes the idea that the "best and the brightest" arrive via the H-1B program. Citing an Immigration and Naturalization Service audit, he notes that many H-1B applications are fraudulent. Matloff also argues that the vast majority of H-1B workers have salaries well below those typically commanded by geniuses -- at or above $100,000 -- and points out that only nine of 115 computer-related awards given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers were given to immigrants.

Second, U.S. companies would move more software development work offshore if they could. But Silicon Valley succeeds partly because of the face-to-face contact among colleagues, Matloff argues.

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