Uncle Sam probes H-1B abuse surge: What do our vultures make of it? The H-1B visa system, which is used by businesses to import skilled foreign workers into America, has seen a massive jump in applications. It's a big enough surge to get the attention of Uncle Sam. As we reported earlier, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said there were 800,000 applications this year for …
It's rife with fraud. Prosecute any and all fraud. They're blocking legitimate skilled workers from opportunity, and allowing unknown others whose only skill is they can pay mules (or they are mules themselves), and through inaction, congress allows this to continue. I don't have hopes that good old Uncle Sucker will do anything about it though, despite the promises.
I do not have issue with H1-B visas. However like you said, the unchecked FLOOD of MILLIONS of unskilled people with NO real way of supporting themselves (except thrpugh slave labor to cartels) is where the REAL problem lies. The citizens of one nation do NOT deserve to be LOOTED by illegal migrants from another nation (via use of social services and increased crime, for starters), no matter how anyone *FEELZ* about it.
But H1-B when done properly is fine with me. Unless, of course, some people abuse it on the HIRING end to hold visa status over the heads of employees... [and exploit, etc.].
Yes there have been a number of abuses including paying a lower wage (now illegal but they will never complain) and laying them off at the point where the H1-B option expires and the company has to sponsor them for a greencard. Now instead they go for L-1 visas (intra company transfers). I came to the US on an H1-B.
I came to the US 40 years ago on an H-1. This visa was issued to 'persons of outstanding merit in the arts or sciences" or, roughly translated in real terms "A postgraduate degree and significant work experience". Even with this my employer had to get Labor Certification for the job -- in other words, go through the motions of proving that I was needed and I wasn't taking an American's job away.
That was then. Since then the program has degenerated into a boondoggle for a handful of Indian contracting companies. These not only displace US workers -- en masse in a number of cases -- but the requirements for academic qualification and labor certification are all but non-existent. This robs both companies and employees of useful help.
As you say, allowing the program to degenerate into an end run to stuff the ranks of outsourcing firms and allow them to operate with US staff is the core of the problem, not the Visa program itself.
The us greatly benefited from the global brain drain that the H-1B visas, the foreign student recruitment, etc afforded us. Now those people are being sent home after graduation and working for out adversaries.
I'd happily see the hand full of companies that were gaming the system slapped with a five year ban on sponsorship, and a blanket review and rejection of unqualified or under-qualified applicants that submitted multiple applications(without prejudice to the applicants for future years, they didn't cook this plan up on their own).
Almost all use of H1B Visas is fraud or abuse, and it was already 25 years ago when I was in college.
Many years back, Siemens brought in nuclear engineers from Germany on a 2 year H1B visa to train the locals how to use some shiny new nuclear power plants. Even the nuclear engineers and operators in the US would have probably been familiar with a GE nuclear reactor, they would not know the ins and outs the people sent over from Siemens did. That is a legitimate use.
What they usually get used for? Outsourcing firms bring masses of programmers (with no specialities whatsoever) over from India so they can pay them well below market rate. By the time they realize they are not even being paid a living wage* it's too late, they can keep working or get their visa revoked and sent back to India with no money and no job.
*The perverse part of it is a large part of this is that these firms bring their H1Bs to silicon valley... the pay they offered would be acceptable in the midwest where I live; they falsely claim they can't find anyone to fill these jobs without even looking in country. And in fact some of these firms lost a fair bit of business to other outsourcing companies that do just that, start up in a part of the US without the insane housing prices of Silicon Valley and hire talent in the region at prices that'd be a joke in Silicon Valley but acceptable where they are located.
As I was on a TN visa from Canada a couple of times, and started the H1-B process both times, I can definitely assure you not all applications are fraudulent. In retrospect, I'm glad I came back to Canada; the situation down there has been nuts ever since 9/11, and getting worse every year.
One lesson from this discussion is never take seriously any corporate reference to a "labor shortage" without the context of what wage is being offered. There is a market-clearing mechanism called wage increases! The problem has always been American developers didn't want to go that route. Relatedly, what incentive is there for young American citizens to get good at coding if they will be laid off by that developer at 45 so that the employer can hire a <30-year-old at indenture-style wages?
And the art is in achieving a balance.
It is clear, both in the US and the UK, the first preference is to use and abuse migrant labour rather than address fundamentals.
In this context we can see part of US foreign policy is to ensure other countries don’t develop to the point where they eclipse the US, so as to ensure there is both a market for US goods and a steady supply of migrate labour willing to work in the US.
I observe that 99 out of a 100 recruiters I get email from are Indian. Recruiting has been taken over by foreign recruiters for quite awhile, and I am aware that they have a huge bias towards bringing in their countrymen in to the US. They contact non-Indians only to gather a few Americans they can show to the government as proof of need for H1Bs because they tried but couldn't find many US citizens first.
I also observe that when I apply through the foreign-born recruiters I almost never get an interview with client, where as going in through Americans I get interviews maybe 80% of the time (and generally win these). This leads me to believe the Indians pretend to submit me to clients, and indeed many times I have caught them lying.
In addition, I see blatant gaming on wages, where foreign-born recruiters low-ball rates, either from sharp bargaining tactics or trying to cast off Americans in order to profitably bring in Indians. Recently we had two prosecuted cases in Silicon Valley where crooked agencies lied a lot to bring in cheap tech labor which they then exploited.
As for H1B competence, I've lived next door to several H1Bs and tried to engage them in friendly technical conversation. In almost every single case they have avoided talking about what they do, or about programming. The one time an H1B talked about doing C# programming for the client, it was obvious he was junior grade and there should have been no reason to bring them into the US as plenty of even college kids could be doing the job.
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> I also observe that when I apply through the foreign-born recruiters I almost never get an interview with client..
Suspect if (UK) English is not their first language, they are using your CV for reference purposes or even fraud…
Suggest you create a fake CV with fake buzzwords etc. and submit it to them when next asked…
I wish the Reg would label these video pieces in the headlines, so I know not to click on them in the daily email. It's annoying to read the first couple of paragraphs of a piece and only then find out that the real content is in a form I don't care to consume. (My tolerance for synchronous media is limited.)
I know it's in the HTML page title, but I'm not in the habit of looking at that.
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