Narayan AmmachchiThe Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has sued US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in order to obtain information on employees and employers using the H1B visa program.
The non-profit, which campaigns to reduce both legal and illegal immigration in the United States, says it chose to file the suit after the USCIS failed to the produce precise information it was seeking.
The lawsuit adds a new twist to the seemingly never-ending outcry over the visa program, which is designed to allow US businesses, particularly Silicon Valley-based technology developers and service providers, to source high-skilled talent from around the globe.
In its complaint, FAIR has urged the USCIC to provide access to records of the top 20 H1B visa employers and top 100 non-profits employing through the program. It also requested information on the company-wide visa-approval rate, workplace location, lowest wages paid to the employees, and the skill level of each worker.
The H1B visa program has been under fire since President Donald Trump issued his ‘Buy American Hire American’ executive order, describing the American immigration policy as “broken”.
“While H1B employers are required to pay foreign workers at market value, the fact is that flooding the labor market serves to drive down wages and limit opportunities for American workers,” said Dale Wilcox, Director of Immigration Reform Law Institute, a unit of FAIR, in a statement.
“There is no shortage of Americans who have technical skills or are currently acquiring them in US schools. The H1B visa program should not be exploited for business objectives while many qualified Americans are struggling to find employment.”
It is no secret that top US technology companies, including Google and Facebook, employ H1B visa holders, as there is a severe shortage in skilled tech talent in the country. Furthermore, studies have found that one new job in the technology sector creates half a dozen jobs in other sectors.
Yet the critics of the visa program are not convinced, and it continues to hit the headlines repeatedly.
1.5 million H1B takes 80% of IT jobs in America, most of the fortune 500 companies outsource majority of their IT jobs to Indian based consulting companies including cognizant, tcs, I nfosys and they bring most of their candidates from offshore or the H1B candidates still living here, 7 out of 10 American STEM graduates can’t find jobs in IT, most of the Indian Americans and other Americans are fired or laid off and these big companies outsource all their jobs to Indian based consulting companies, we are finding it hard to get a job or H1B employees are giving very high competition to us since they are willing to work for half salary. Please do a research on what percentage of IT jobs are outsourced in all big companies and how many US Citizens work in IT? Also study what was the hourly rate given by US Companies for contractors for last 30 years, Companies pay less and less money over years while value of dollar going down because of inflation, H1B minimum salary remain 45,000-65,000 for last 30 years while some one could buy a mansion with 65,000 30 years before and those cost more than a million now in NYC , nevertheless there is no increase in H1B minimum wage, every year new 85,000 people are coming and those who got granted h1b visa keep renewing their visa…so every year number of IT workers are increasing in Geometric proportion , companies claim there are millions of IT jobs but they fail to reveal that most of IT jobs are contracts and these millions of foreign H1B employees themselves compete for all IT new contract jobs, companies want more supply to crush wages, to solve the problem-end all H1B visas and replace it with green card provided companies need to give Government 3 times more salary of US Citizens who are doing the same job for 5 years to sponsor green card, there should be representation from US Worker’s in judges panel in determining the qualification and salary of employees, extra money that companies give need to be used for free education for American children
The Real killer is L1 visas. You are mistaken..now a days outsourcing firms not interested in H1Bs. They do more L1s as that is bonded and no wage verification process. These outsourcing firms bring people from India with very low salary as they can’t move out with L1 visa. They file GCs for everyone using EB1C, that is a clear EB1C abuse. Americans believed or forced to believe a myth that H1B taking jobs and they are cheap…But truth is L1s taking jobs and they are cheap labor….or slaves as they can’t ask for their rights. Now biggest abuse is EB1C…every Indian or Chinese coming from there claims as managers and file in EB1C. No one cares as Americans are behind H1Bs and DACA….Time to wake up…Sue CTS for EB1C abuse, they took jobs from Disney and lot other firms…Wake up America…
Mr Patel..The alternative for these companies is to offshore the work . Then its only the US economy which will suffer.
Offshore teams are terrible let them and watch their company die.off. If you are so talented, and not just dirt cheap, build up your own country and show Americans how dumb we are.
It’s “H-1B”
Time to scrap H1-B as well? What will it take to get to Merit Based?
Mr Gaurav Patel, you are wrong. The reason being that, technology is dumped on to a US user but, you never include the American to take part. How fair is it? Technology is cruising past everyones expectations but a normal US citizen gazes at these technologies while poor and unemployed are growing in all EU countries and Americas. Upliftment must be inclusive and ground level but it should not be this kind of selectively discouraging the US citizen.
Moving all work to offshore is not going to work out because, if you create a product outside of the US and want US citizens to use it, trade tariffs will be implemented, because the US consumer gets to use foreign products, but foreign companies do not pay the taxes.For every import a tax must be levied. Had enough people say what US must do. Please mind your own business, your own country’s progress in mind.