US IT staffing biz accused of abusing student visa program now forced to stop advertising only to immigrants

An American IT staffing'n'consultancy company has been banned from running job ads that say only temporary work visa holders need apply. In a settlement [PDF] with the US Department of Justice today, ASTA CRS agreed it will make all job postings available to anyone in America, including citizens. The dept pointed out that the …

[Anonymous Coward]

SOP

"The same system is occasionally abused by unscrupulous employers who use the leverage they have over the students to make them work long hours for low pay."

My only quibble with this is that occasionally should be replaced by usually.

It's Standard Operating Procedures for most software consulting shops. And it includes H1B as well as F1 visas. The visa holders are entirely beholden to the company, are under paid and over billed (justified by resumes massively inflating their experience).

Frankly, the "punishment" is an absurdly gentle slap (more of a tap) on the wrist.

[Someone Else]

And this will change behavior how?

Expect this scumbag firm to not do anything different (except, perhaps, word it adverts slightly differently). And if you are a US citizen and happen to respond to said adverts (expecting, of course, to be paid US scale wages), don't expect a callback from said scumbag firm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the largest

HCL is currently under a lawsuit for simillar practices. Mostly discrimination against indigenous (US) citizens

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/08/h-1b-outsourcing-giant-games-visa-system-to-discriminate-against-non-south-asians-in-hiring-lawsuit-claims/

And Tata - what happened to that?

https://www.theregister.com/2018/11/06/tata_discrimination_lawsuit/

Between them, I believe tehy employ almost 700,000 IT staff worldwide (hence the AC)!.

[martinusher]

Nothing to do with discrimination and everything to do with visa conditions

The whole point of importing temporary labor on non-immigrant visas is to overcome local shortages of skilled labor. Theoretically you have to advertise the job locally to prove that there isn't enough local labor to fill it.

(Also, note that the category 'US Citizens' includes people who immigrated from India and their descendants.)

[eldakka]

The workers went unpaid if they weren’t hired and Samal forced them to submit phony sick and annual leave requests so he wasn’t obliged to pay them a salary. He also took 401k retirement contributions from his workers and banked them in his own accounts.

What a piece of shit.