Guest Post by Joe Guzzardi
Since Congress created the H-1B in 1990, IT services companies have had things go mostly their way. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services statistics show that the federal government has issued about 1.8 million visas through 2017 to overseas workers that displace or block employment opportunities to experienced, skilled Americans. H-1B visas are valid for three years, are routinely renewed for an additional three years, and routinely lead to citizenship.
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But in the Trump White House, the president has ordered tighter H-1B qualifying standards which have put a big league scare into tech giants Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro. In February, USCIS announced that it will require “detailed statements of work or work orders” about the job that would be performed by an H-1B visa holder when employed at a third-party site. Employers will need to file more details, known as requests for evidence (RFE), to confirm why a foreign-born applicant should be given preference over American applicants. Previously, adjudicating immigration officers didn’t have to review third-party contracts, dates or location of precisely where the H-1B visa holder would be employed.
In anticipation of the April 2 H-1B filing date for fiscal 2019, immigration lawyers have criticized USCIS for overly stringent demands, and India’s largest IT service companies have increased their lobbying budgets. A Center for Responsive Politics review showed that Tata increased its lobbying expenses 37 percent to $110,000; Infosys, up by a multiple of four to $200,000; and Wipro, up by five-and-one-half times to $130,000. Indian workers receive 70 percent of the total H-1B visas issued every year – 65,000 go to overseas applicants, and 20,000 are reserved for foreign nationals studying in the U.S. who earn an advanced degree.
The agency defends its more rigorous standards. USCIS noted that it has found “significant employer violations” among H-1B employers which include paying less than the required wage, not paying workers the required wage while they wait for project assignments, and having employees perform non-specialty occupation jobs. In short, IT specialists hire many, but pay little.
Employers cannot point to tangible evidence that they truly need overseas workers. In fact, high-ranking industry officials admit that qualified Americans are readily available. Industry representatives routinely claim that because of a qualified personnel shortage, about 500,000 jobs cannot be filled. But in a moment of rare candor in 2016, then-Infosys Chief Executive Vishal Sikka admitted that if new regulations slowed the flow of Indian cheap labor techs to the U.S., the employers’ solution would be to hire “locally,” meaning American. Sikka: “There are enough universities, enough ability to hire, enough ability to teach.”
At the same time that Sikka confirmed what H-1B critics had been insisting for decades – that no shortage of qualified U.S. tech workers existed – the Business Insider reported that HP cut 55,000 jobs between 2012 and 2016; yet, the company filed more than 2,000 labor condition applications for H-1B visas. And CNBC’s story, “Silicon Valley: Much young talent, many fewer jobs,” reported that at San Francisco’s annual Internapalooza, more than 5,000 college-age students showed up hoping to get a chance at a Silicon Valley job, evidence that an abundant supply of young talent is available.
Understanding why employers love the H-1B visa is easy – it expands the applicant pool which, in turn, allows them to pay less in salaries.
As long as there is one American working below his capability or unable to procure work commensurate with his talents, there should be NO H1-b visas…
CONgress needs to ball up and End the H1-B program.
It also seems to be an end run around the immigration statutes (part of the Globalist NWO to flood the Western world with cheap labor migrants). Everything is done to benefit the Mega Corporations.
Ball up? Hah. After the gutlessness shown by House republicans on the Ryan spending bill today, the cucks couldn’t “ball up” if they wanted to. The majority voted for the bill that funds Planned Parenthood, Sanctuary cities and Obamacare while not doing dick for the border wall… If Trump signs the bill, there will be no second term for him….smgdmfh…
How effective is $110,000 in lobbying money expense?
It depends on whether you manage to get video of the politician and the child prostitute together, or not.
That depends on which liberal politician’s bra it gets stuffed in.
As a computer scientist I can tell you that these ‘Dot Heads’ are know-nothing ‘Code Monkeys’. Indian education relies on memorization rather than concepts. They continually lie. “When will this be done?” Oh next week. Next week “is it done”? What is that? “Oh it will be done next week”
Fuck the Dot Heads and the people who employ them.
Yesterday my phone rang but it was an 888 number so I ignored it. Then I notice they had left a voice mail. I listened and there was a garbled recorded message about my Microsoft ‘license’ expiring and my account would be closed. Well, I had not allowed my Windows updates to take place for some time and my computer was telling me it needed to be done ( I disconnect from the internet when I go to bed at night so my computer doesn’t automatically do it) so I called the number and was put in touch with Bombay “Mike’. He said he needed to do some minor housekeeping on my computer to update my account. I was suspicious as anyone can represent themselves over the phone as working for Microsoft.
Well of course 20 minutes later I am telling him he is a goddamned cow worshipping immigrant and that I am not going to pay him $90 for 3 months of anti virus protection and for him to get off of my phone and out of my computer.
Of course he crashed my computer so I had to spend a couple of more hours getting it back on line.
I called Verizon’s fraud division afterwards and notified them that a criminal organization was using their network to rip off people. That they could be operating out of India but they had a 202 area code number so they at least had a boiler room in the D.C. area and that Verizon should take steps to cut off their phone and internet service if not alert the FCC or FBI. This is, no doubt, what H-1b immigrants get up to when their jobs or visas expire!
We can bitch , we can call , write show up at town hall meetings and be escorted out because we refused to accept answers to questions that were not asked . The badge wearing minion employed by the corporate state will pile charges on you when he or she should be allowing elected reps to encounter mobs with tar and feathers and a noose .
Lobbying efforts increased , translation bribery payments increased to convince our so called reps to ignore the real situation for American working people . 4% unemployment , does anyone really believe that nonsense .Sure Americans demand more money we have to cover 20 year pensions for badge wearing minions retiring before they are 50 and now must pay higher costs for everything while saving for our own retirement .
Remember the people we vote for do not give a fuck about you at all !
Our own government has priced us out of the market to sell our services as employees. Between taxes, the health scam, cost of living inflation, “college education” etc., all heaped on us BTW by Washington through deficit spending, bribery, money printing and various “social programs”, being an American Citizen now is being the most expensive “human resource” there is. These non-citizens are hired because they are not burdened by the same gun-point theft we citizens are, so even though they get paid much less, they get to keep more. Think about it.
Until we all wake the fuck up, and stand up and say no more, to stop larding our life down with this massive protection racket called Government, these companies will continue to find more creative ways to bring in non-citizens. It is the same principal as how people shop at Walmart, even though most know it is wall to wall Chinese junk. It is cheaper. Same reason too.
I can attest to what a scam the H-1B program is. I spent several years working those petitions for USCIS. They might have been relevant back in the early 90s when computer occupations were legitimately “special”, but the definition of what denotes a specialty occupation eventually got watered down to a ridiculous level. In order to qualify, the job is actually supposed to be one in which a degree in a very specific field of study is required and the job duties are so complex that a person not having those duties could not perform the job. A good example would be hiring a person with a degree in civil engineering to do the job of a civil engineer. However, in recent years we would see all the big India computer companies, as well as various others, filing H-1B petitions and sending support letters with statements indicating that it in order to do the job, a degree in a field of study such as information technology, computer science, mathematics, physics, engineering, business management or related subjects is needed. That’s literally what they would say. And the previous two administrations were totally fine with approving them all. But now that the current administration is trying to stick to the actual meaning of the H-1B regulations and requiring a degree in a specific field of study, all the big companies are freaking out. Their bullshit of petitioning for a common code monkey that has a degree in one of about 20 various areas of study is finally being challenged. They’ll be getting a lot of denial letters this year and naturally they’ll complain to the gutless Congress, so I’m sure more drama will ensue. Fuck em all.