Companion bills have been introduced in Congress aimed at reforming H-1B and L-1 guest worker programs. While the sponsors tout these bills as a "complete overhaul" which would "protect American workers and crack-down on foreign outsourcing companies which deprive qualified Americans of high-skill jobs" there are some aspects of the bill which don't live up to the hype.
Pres. Trump promised with his Monday night Tweet that his Administration would be halting immigration at a time when more than 20 million Americans are filing for unemployment. Unfortunately, the actual Executive Order fell well short of that promise, but there is some room for hope.
The head of two IT staffing companies was sentenced to a year in jail after he was found guilty of falsifying visa applications to secure H-1B guest worker visas for foreign nationals. According to the Justice Department, Anjaneyulu Katam "falsified visa applications, work experience documents, and work contracts, which he then submitted to the U.S. Department of Labor, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of State, in order to secure illegal H-1B visas for Indian nationals."
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) unveiled an immigration proposal today that would grant amnesty to illegal aliens and increase the number of foreign workers imported each year. The proposal also attempts to appeal to Pres. Trump's desire to build a border wall by including a boost for border security funding.
According to Newsweek, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reported that the agency's helpline, set up by the Trump Administration, received more than 5,000 tips, reporting H-1B visa fraud and abuse, between April 3, 2017 and May 21, 2018.
Nearly 1.5 million foreign graduates of U.S. universities received work permits through the Optional Training Program (OPT) between 2004 and 2016, according to Pew Research. OPT allows foreign students who graduate, particularly those with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics, to stay and work in the United States for up to 36 months after graduation and compete with American workers.
A group of Disney tech workers have dropped their lawsuit against the company after a years-long effort to hold the company accountable for replacing them with foreign workers and forcing them to train them. The workers' attorney, Sara Blackwell, said it was difficult to challenge Disney for using a lawful program to replace the American workers.
The Dept. of Labor announced in a statement today that Cloudwick Technologies Inc., a California-based data solutions services company, will pay $173,044 to 12 guest workers in back wages. The announcement comes after an investigation conducted by the department revealed that the company failed to pay employees the wages required by the H-1B program and made illegal deductions from their paychecks.
In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, USCIS Director Francis Cissna wrote, that the agency plans to tighten guidelines on H-1B visas issued to specialty workers and end the issuance of work permits to H-4 visa holders.
As is so often the case, the Times' story struggles to find room for the perspective of the people who stand to benefit from restrictions on non-immigrant guest worker programs: American workers.
USCIS has reportedly reneged on a proposed “Buy American, Hire American” regulation that would have prevented H-1B visa extensions beyond the six-year limit and likely stopped more than 100,000 foreign workers with pending green card applications from keeping their H-1B visas beyond the allowed two three-year terms, creating job opportunities for higher-skilled Americans.
DHS department heads are drafting a “Buy American, Hire American” proposal that would prevent H-1B visa extensions beyond the six-year limit. If implemented, the proposed regulations would likely stop more than 100,000 foreign workers with pending green card applications from keeping their H-1B visas beyond the allowed two three-year terms, creating job opportunities for higher-skilled Americans.
A new op-ed in News India Times highlights the growing angst in India over the Trump Administration's tougher vetting of H-1B visa applications. The vetting is aimed at reducing abuses within the program that allow foreign workers to fill jobs that could be held by high-skilled American workers.
Sources have said that the Trump administration is planning to end the Obama-era rule that allowed spouses of H-1B foreign workers to receive a work permit. Under this new rule 41,526 people received work permits from Oct. 2015-Sept. 2016.
In 2015 Pres. Obama created a work permit for certain H-4 visa holders, even though under this visa they were not allowed to hold a job or be issued a Social Security number.
The House Judiciary Committee passed Rep. Darrell Issa's (R-Calif.) H.R. 170, the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act, earlier this week. The bill passed by voice vote to little opposition in the highly divisive committee. That should tell you something -- it doesn't really do anything to protect American tech workers.
SRV Pizza Inc. has agreed to pay H-1B worker, Subhash Tehlan, $130,629 in back wages after failing to pay the required wages and overtime during a four-year period. This agreement comes after the Dept. of Labor (DOL) completed an investigation of the business, specifically in regard to wages paid to Tehlan.
A new USCIS memo shows that the agency has rescinded its policy that required immigration officers to defer to previous eligibility decisions when approving H-1B visa renewals. Under the new policy a H-1B renewal application will receive the same level of investigation as an initial application.
Yesterday Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, asking him to review the high-skilled TN visa program during the NAFTA negotiations. Sen. Grassley says the TN visa program could undermine the Trump administration’s goal of protecting American workers from being replaced by cheap, foreign labor.
Reuters reported that data provided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) shows that between Jan.1 and Aug. 31 of this year, USCIS issued 85,000 challenges or “requests for evidence” (RFEs) to H-1B petitions. This is a 45% increase compared to the same period last year which only issued around 59,000 RFEs.
In a recent study the Pew Research Center said that according to their findings, employers planned in FY16 on paying foreign H-1B visa workers higher salaries than those earned by Americans in similar fields. However, other experts have said that the methods used are flawed and, “not worthy of Pew or experienced researchers to put out”.
The Obama administration awarded 2.3 million work permits to foreign workers in 2016 according to a new report from the Department of Homeland Security. This number does not include new legal immigrants and those granted visas through guest-worker programs such as H-1B visas. This means that around 4 million legal foreign workers were added the U.S. economy and job market in FY16 alone.
According to a recent DHS report the USCIS has approved 2,634,328 H-1B applications from FY07- June 30th, 2017. The report shows that over 100,000 foreign workers are imported to the U.S. through this program every year to compete with American workers.
Last week American Technology Consulting (ATC), an Iowa information technology staffing company, was caught posting a job ad that stated only H-1B visa holders should apply. The job was for a java developer and represents the growing trend of replacing American workers with cheap, foreign labor.
The Department of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta announced today that the agency will ramp of its efforts to protect American workers and more aggressively confront employers that are committing visa fraud and abuse. This release comes after the agency has completed the review of the H-1B and other foreign worker visa programs that was required by Pres. Trump's ‘Buy American, Hire American’ executive order.
Acting USCIS Director James McCament responded to a letter by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) stating that the agency has multiple investigations, “regarding the possible misuse of the H-1B program” by employers such as Disney, Northeast Utilities (Eversource Energy), and the University of California San Francisco. All three of these companies were highlighted in the 60 Minutes investigation on how American workers are being replaced by foreign H-1B workers.
The Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ruled that guest workers seeking a H-1B visa based on their advanced degree must have earned their degrees from colleges that were accredited when they received their degree. This will stop the loophole that allows foreign workers to easily obtain an advanced degree from “diploma mills” in order to be eligible for a H-1B visa.
There is a 'conspiracy' going on to benefit employers and discriminate against American workers, especially older workers.
Most of the immigration talk over the last week has been about Pres. Trump's "border wall". Meanwhile, Congress continues to consider increases in H-2B visas for low-skilled foreign workers, and tens of thousands of American tech workers continue to suffer from flatlined wages and fewer job opportunities. Building the wall may have been Trump's most famous campaign pledge, but he also pledged to protect American workers from foreign worker competition.
Pres. Trump signed his "Buy American, Hire American" executive order today that will direct government departments to review how H-1B visas are awarded and suggest changes so that only the highly-skilled and higher paid applicants receive the temporary work visa. This order is the first step towards moving the program from a random lottery approach to a merit-based system.
LifeZette -- Brendan Kirby
Chris Chmielenski, director of content and activism at the advocacy group NumbersUSA, also praised the administration's efforts to crack down on abuses.
"It's the first time, really, that we've seen H-1B workers will really have a voice and will expose some of these things," he said. "This is the first step to reform the H-1B system."...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) department issued a memorandum over the weekend that requires companies to prove that the computer programming job they are filling with a H-1B foreign worker meets the advanced knowledge and experience qualifications of the H-1B visa program. This will provide more scrutiny to computer programmer applications to ensure they are not being hired to do simple jobs that Americans could do.
Reuters -- Julia Edwards Ainsley
The start of the lottery was seen by those watching the issue as the unofficial deadline for the Trump administration to enact H1B visa reform, and the failure to meet that deadline signals that Trump’s promised overhaul of the system may be off the table or long delayed.
Prof. Norm Matloff "says no" to claims more foreign students returning to their home countries means the tech industry is suffering a lack of qualified job candidates.
Breitbart -- John Binder
But, NumbersUSA’s Director of Government Relations Rosemary Jenks said the congressmen are “misunderstanding” what the H-1B visa program actually does, as far as Americans being replaced by cheaper, foreign workers.
“This doesn’t have any impact on outsourcing jobs,” Jenks told Breitbart Texas. “H-1B’s are coming here. This shows a misunderstanding of the entire H-1B program. H-1B has nothing to do with moving jobs abroad.”
Breitbart -- John Binder
Immigration hawks at NumbersUSA say the open borders lobby appears to be opposing every position the Trump Administration holds on immigration.
“I think that the advocacy groups are going to scream and yell about any single thing that anyone proposes that is not open borders,” NumbersUSA Government Affairs Director Rosemary Jenks told Breitbart Texas. “They’ve decided that it’s in their interest to fight everything Trump wants to do.”
Computerworld -- Patrick Thibodeau
Since 2005, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) has been introducing H-1B reform legislation in the House and getting nowhere. But with the bill he introduced today, he might have struck gold.
Pascrell calls his bill bipartisan, but that doesn't quite do it justice. The co-sponsors of this bill, called the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2017, are about as far apart politically as you can get.
Politico/Morning Consult released a poll today showing that only 30% of registered American voters believe that H-1B workers fill jobs Americans are not able to perform. 44% said that H-1B visa holders definitely fill job opportunities that Americans could do.
Find Law -- Christopher Coble, Esq.
But those are plans from Congress -- could the president act alone on the H1-B program? Eric Ruark, director of research at limited immigration advocate NumbersUSA, told the Wall Street Journal that Trump could attack the program in three ways:
Use an executive directive to tighten the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which gives foreign graduates in science, technology, engineering, or math-related fields the right to find permanent U.S. jobs for up to 36 months;
Breitbart -- John Binder
Director of Governmental Affairs for NumbersUSA Rosemary Jenks told Breitbart Texas that Trump’s executive order draft is feared by multinationals for the specific reason that it throws a wrench in their current model where tech departments are handed over to consulting firms who then find cheap, foreign workers to fill job positions.
Breitbart News -- John Binder
Similarly, Brown’s legislation would mirror Lofgren’s bill in the sense that it would not deal with the number of H1-B visas given every year to foreign workers, but instead close loopholes that allow companies to hire cheaper, foreign workers over American workers.
The Blaze -- Kevin J. Mooney
A case in point that is worth greater attention and scrutiny in the run up to the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries is the H-2B Visa program that was approved as part of the omnibus bill President Barack Obama signed into law in December. The provision concerning foreign guest workers is found on page 701 of the bill.
An op-ed by Thomas Broadwater argues that blue-collar work visas "are boxing millions of minority citizens out of jobs."
Broadwater elaborates:
"The number of good-paying blue collar jobs is shrinking. Since 1980, America has lost more than 12 million manufacturing jobs to automation or offshoring. Wages have stagnated."
American tech workers who have been replaced by H-1B workers are claiming discrimination based on national origin and taking their case to court. These court cases are responses to the increasing practice of organizations, especially in the IT industry, of laying off American employees after they have trained their H-1B visa replacement.
After the New York Times published a story in June covering how Walt Disney World forced American employees to train their foreign-worker replacements, outrage surfaced across the country. A group of concerned citizens decided to do something about it by forming the organization Boycott Disney Now.
Hewlett Packard announced this week that the company plans to cut about 10% of its workforce, roughly around 30,000 American workers, while expanding the use of H-1B foreign worker visas.
A recent poll by CareerBuilder/Harris Poll of 2,321 hiring and human resource managers show that 73 percent of employers disapprove of issuing more H-1B visas for foreign workers.
New York Times -- Julia Preston
The employees who kept the data systems humming in the vast Walt Disney fantasy fief did not suspect trouble when they were suddenly summoned to meetings with their boss.
Breitbart News -- Caroline May
The Department of Homeland Security has declined to investigate Southern California Edison on allegations that it is replacing American employees with foreign workers on H-1B visas.
Washington Times -- Kellan Howell
Displaced U.S. workers who were pushed out of their jobs by immigrant replacements are suing the Department of Homeland Security over a new rule that would allow the spouses of guest workers to enter the job market.
Los Angeles Times -- Jim Puzzanghera
The U.S. Labor Department will not investigate allegations that Southern California Edison Co. abused a popular visa program for skilled foreign workers, according to senators who requested the probe.
A top Labor official said an investigation could not be opened because there was no complaint from someone adversely affected by the use of the H-1B visas and no reasonable cause to believe the company violated the rules governing the visas.
