Read : http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Chasing-dreams-and-dollars-India-and-the-H-1B-7382822.php?t=2af45939e7
5 replies (most recent on top)
great information-we need to shut down the h1B sham.
keep it up and spread the word !!!! KUDOS to YOU !!!!!!!!
Call, write, email your state representatives to stop this H1B nonsense. It is pretty clear companies are abusing the system for cutting costs and modern day slavery of workforce. You can do something about it and writing your representatives doesn't take that long.
Free movement of capital, goods and people is required. Glad GoI is demanding USA to lower its walls to allow more people of Indian origin to freely move around.
Some of these Indian crooks got busted. Glad the Feds are doing something about it.
http://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2016/04/28/indian-american-couple-indicted-for-20-million-h-1b-visa-fraud-scheme410908/
Excerpt from the article:
Fraud schemes and worker abuse
Fraud and alleged abuse of workers also have been issues in the H-1B program. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents initiated more than 200 fraud investigations into H-1B and related H and L visas, and made more than 110 criminal arrests from 2013 to 2015. Lawsuits and prosecutions also have occurred over guest workers reportedly being underpaid or forced to kick back some of their earnings to their sponsoring companies, which have control of their visas.
Daniel Showalter, a group supervisor with Homeland Security investigations in the Los Angeles area, said in an interview that the way the H-1B program has developed, with the huge staffing firms flooding the system with applications, has “taken it away from the intent of the visa itself.” Showalter, who has investigated visa fraud for much of his 20-year career, says the system as it is now opens the door to fraud schemes and worker abuse.
The most vocal critics of the H-1B program argue that the program deprives Americans of jobs and needs to be reformed. The most recent action: an increase in the cost of the visa application for major staffing companies like Tata and Infosys. A provision slipped into the 2015 omnibus federal spending bill doubled the fee to $4,000 for such companies.
Recent hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose immigration panel is chaired by Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions, have been sharply critical of the H-1B program, also focusing largely on the large Indian firms’ dominance and concerns about the replacement of U.S. workers.
Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin, a strong immigration supporter, have teamed on a bill that would forbid the replacement of a domestic worker by an H-1B visa holder and prioritize visa allocations to foreigners holding advanced degrees.
While Infosys and Tata refused to comment on visa-related queries for this story, it is clear the Indian IT industry has been unnerved by these changes.
Nasscom, the primary trade association of India’s IT and software services industry, estimated that the visa fee increase could cost the sector hundreds of millions of dollars annually. More than 80 percent of the industry’s $120 billion in annual revenue is from IT service exports, including H-1B workers, R. Chandrasekhar, Nasscom’s president, said.
The U.S. actions are “discriminatory to India,” he said. “At a time when both countries are targeting trade of $500 billion, and are striving to work together, it can hurt economic policy between the two countries,” he said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised concerns about the bill with President Obama after it was passed late last year. Then in early March, India took its complaints to the World Trade Organization. If the U.S. and India can’t negotiate a settlement of the complaint, India can ask the WTO to review the situation.
“It is a trade issue,” Chandrasekhar said. “We see the restrictions sought to be imposed that will create barriers for Indian industry. It is quite worrisome.”