Share Your H1B and L1 Visa Experience

Steve,

I doubt you'll find much evidence from the past 2-3 years. There were some incidents 3-4 years ago where workers were misrepresented on the forms, but the State Dept has tightened up on its screening and on the "prevailing wage" requirement. That makes it costly to oversell the visa applicant.

What I saw in the last thread (and other places on this topic) were a bunch of "just so" stories. Things along the lines of "everyone knows" that Indians are low skill and work for peanuts. The problem is that both of these conditions would violations of the existing H-1B regulations -- as written. They are not design problems. They may be enforcement problems. But I suspect that most of these (incredibly non-specific) stories are just folklore.

I addressed the H-1B visa issue in a recent Detroit News Op-Ed piece (link: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090220/OPINION01/902200304) as well as in my recently published book, The Services Shift (link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0137133502).

Good discussion. I hope it stays civil.

Steve,

Try this link:

http://www.desicrunch.com/Companies.aspx

@Bob k
Really??? It was 2-3 years story?

You want to read the online feedback by employees about those H1B sponsorers, as recently as last month, on how they paid their visa sponsorers in Indian Rupees (currency).

For your reading pleasure:
http://www.desicrunch.com/Companies.aspx

If I could pick just three things that would have the most benefit they would be:

1) Prevent outplacement of H-1b workers. Firms engaged primarily in offshore outsourcing or workers who would facilitate that practice should also be prevented from using the visa. After all, it was designed to fill a shortage.

2) Redefine "prevailing wage" to be "market wage" based on skill and locale. The minimum wage should be the median across all skill levels for that region.

3) Increased audits. Penalties should be severe enough to discourage fraud and abuse.

To Bob K: Here are two incredibly specific articles on the subject for you to read:

Hindustan Times, 2007: "H-1B visa holders are paid less than US counterparts":
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=cda81c51-7247-4c2a-8e36-2414c5f9686c

ComputerWorld, 2009 - "Fed indictments tell how H-1B visas were used to undercut wages":
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9127943&intsrc=hm_list

To Steve Hamm: Apart from email people may send you (let's face it, would-be anonymous folks will have to trust that you won't give the list of people who contacted you to anyone), here is a website with many incredibly specific stories on it:
http://www.hireamericansfirst.org/members/h1b_harm_report.aspx

To Steve Hamm: Here is my incredibly specific 5-step program to reform the worker visa system. Okay - it could be even more specific - but heck this is just a comments board. Others may have other ideas.

1) Raise the bar for the foreign workers coming in. Require significantly more than just a bachelor's degree in the STEM alleged "shortage" field of study.

2) Remove most of the common information technology job roles from the list of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) shortage fields. For instance, there is clearly no shortage of computer application developers (e.g. .Net, Java, JavaScript, HTML, PHP, SQL, etc.) in the U.S.

3) Only allow end-user companies to sponsor the visas. No more Wipro, Infosys, Satyam, Tata, etc. inserting themselves into the process as unneeded middlemen and dominating both the visas and a sector of the labor market.

4) As hardly needs stating at this point, increase the oversight over all the foreign work visa programs and over the visa holders themselves. This will become much less necessary after reform #3 is implemented: because that reform will automatically eliminate much of the fraud and underpayment.

5) Increase the fee for sponsoring a foreign worker and apply it to a fund for training or retraining U.S. citizens.

I was on L1B in US between 2001 and 2006. I was unsuccessful in getting an H1B in 2005 (filed 1 day too late by the employer) and 2006 (application reached on last day and I lost in the lottery). I had to leave the country as L1B is valid only for 5 years.

My employer, a big US company, desperately tried to keep me and filed for an H1B in 2007. Even though I managed to get an H1B in 2007, I decided to move to UK where my status is not tied to the employer and I can work for a career rather than work for a visa/green card.

I was at a stage of life where I was getting ready to buy a house. I was also planning to spend about $100,000 on my wife's education. US is too great a country to be impacted by the loss of a single trained person who was planning to spend on housing/education. The unfortunate part is that I know of many individuals who ended up moving out of US due to visa issues.

I feel people on L1 are especially vulnerable as they cannot change jobs. People on H1B are almost as vulnerable as the chances of finding a decent H1B sponsor, if one one looses the job - especially in this economy - is very small.

The only people who seem to benefit from H1B visa appear to be those dubious bodyshops. Ths government found a 15-20% fraud rate in H1B but I am pretty sure the rate will be much higher. (Some of the bodyshops file H1B for a candidate without a project and then show the employee to be on leave. Strictly speaking, this is not illegal, but definitely - these people are playing the system).

The prevailing wages clause also gets circumvented by the employers as the employee who has 10 year experience can be shown to be holding an entry level position.

Most genuine people will never be able to use H1B as the quota has been getting over in April itself. This is because most companies will not offer a job 6 months in advance (except for may be college grad hires - who in any case have upto 30 months of OPT).

I hope the H1B visa program will be replaced by a point based system. This is similar to what other countries like Canada, UK and Australia have. To safegaurd public funds, the point based system can have a clause that the migrant will not be able to access public funds like enemployment benefit for upto 5-10 years. US had felt like home in the past, and if a point based system is introduced, I hope to be one of the first people to apply.

Bob, it's much more than just folklore when the GAO reports 16% fraud and another 5% of mistatements on LCA applications.

There is way too much data out there for this to be dismissed as folklore. Also, it's not like we go around saying "show me your papers" and it's not like H-1b workers are showing us their pay stubs so of course most stories will be anecdotal. It's up to the government to audit companies, and they have not done this with the exception of the GAO for their study.

Also, the majority of H-1b workers are paid tier 1 wages on a scale of 4. What this means is that most are paid the minimum amount allowed by law.

Prevailing wage is not "market wage" so to claim that prevailing wage laws protects workers is wrong.

Finally, the greatest sponsors of H-1b and L-1 visas are offshore outsourcing firms from India. Also proven through public data - not just folklore.

My employer hires H-1B via Infosys who cost 40% less than local contractors. I won't speak out for fear of being fired.

I suggest that you read the forums at Dice.com, especially this one:

http://seeker.dice.com/olc/forum.jspa?forumID=10

Also, why did it not occur to you to ask American-born IT professionals about immigration before posting your article? You also should have asked Professor Norm Matloff.

-- Paul Bain
paulbain@pobox.com

Many co still rent L1 Visa workers to their customers - this was banned by Bush/congress but who enforces the rules?

e.g IBM has plans to bring L1 workers in east lansing GDC. Even more wondrous it is Mi democratic governor encouraging onshore outsourcing by providing grants and initial projects to IBM. the facility will be staffed 80% with India resources (L1?) and 20% with MSU interns - these people will maintain Stae of Michigan's critical systems. Getting warm fuzzy about the data you will submit online to State Of Mi web sites?

Steve,

I read your article yesterday, and the follow-up today. What I have to share is an experience with the H-1B process, but not the actual visa. I have a Ph.D. from a Top 20 U.S. university and an offer to start full-time at the research wing of a big technology company. From my observations about the process, I have three specific comments to make.

1. The lottery doesn't make sense.

I believe that a lottery is not the most sane process to decide applications by. It seems entirely absurd to me that in a capitalist meritocratic society like the U.S., the government decides whether to let an American company hire a talented individual by lottery. Gambling money is illegal, but gambling with a company's and an individual's future is OK? One way to fix this is to evaluate applicants and award the limited number of visas to the most qualified ones. How would one define/measure talent? Salary is one metric that is a good estimator of an employee's worth to their company. Divide applications by industry sector, look at the salary trends, and award visas to the top ones in each sector -- they are the ones in high demand.

2. There's a lot of fraud happening with the process as it is right now.

About salary discrepancies, the H-1B critics have a very valid point -- and I am one of them. I am aware of several scammy companies that exist as a front for issuing H-1B visas to hopefuls, without them having a job in hand. Many of these are setup by people of Indian origin, may I add. This skirts the #1 critical requirement of the H-1B visa, that it is supposed to be employment-based. The way these fly-by-night companies function is to later farm out their H-1B workers to other companies at lower wages. If anyone did a scientific study, my hypothesis is that the correlation between such scammy companies and lower H-1B wages would be very high. This does not apply to genuinely innovative companies such as Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, and others (my list is limited to the Computer Science sector since that's my field.) They hire individuals for their talent in order to maintain a competitive advantage, and pay their immigrant workers as much as, or more, than the prevailing wages for citizens. If the USCIS were to crack down on these scammy companies, that would help address many of the issues that the critics have. This, of course, is easier said than done.

3. "They can find a skilled American to do the same job" is not always valid.

Sure, there are some jobs that could easily be done by another individual. But not everyone is a cog in the machinery. Companies hire people for the special skills that they bring to the table. To consider one example at random, let's say, me, I've spent 4 years getting an undergrad degree, 2 years getting a Masters, and 4 years doing research that nobody else in the world has done before. The system does not distinguish between the former and the latter. It does not take into account one's skill set and its uniqueness, e.g., by peer review.

There are several other points I would love to discuss, but I'm sure you will have several people bring them up with you. Here, I wanted to focus on some of the issues that I believe are unique to Ph.D.s and other highly-skilled individuals and the companies that want to hire them.

The system actually encourages that they can replace U.S. workers all they want.
This is shockingly STATED in the U.S. Department of Labor STRATEGIC PLAN Fiscal Years 2006-2011
(pg. 35) states:

You've gotta be kidding right?
Job replacement by H-1B workers is a daily occurrence. I was a casualty twice in the last three years.

Google Pfizer and read the report. This is not news.

"... H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker."

http://www.dol.gov/_sec/stratplan/strat_plan_2006-2011.pdf

Hi Steve,

Only a very small percent of victims of the H-1b program will stumble onto your blog. But over the last year many have posted their harm here:

http://www.hireamericansfirst.org/members/h1b_harm_report.aspx

My first-hand experience has been that in every case that an H-1b was hired, there were qualified American applicants as well. The most common reason the H-1b was chosen was because they were asking a lower rate.

Industry is ballistic over the "H-1b restrictions" in TARP - but all that says is that corporations receiving TARP funds must first try to recruit U.S. workers, and hire the U.S. worker unless the H-1b worker is more qualified, before they can apply for an H-1b.

Thus even the TARP restriction allows employers to sponsor H-1b in spite of a flood of qualified American applicants.

The h1b program does not work for anyone other than bodyshoppers because the time required from selection of oversea candidate to start working can not be less than 8 months. Assuming 2 months for selection interview, decision and the application prepartion and 6 months of wait from h1b lottery in April to start in october, it is not possible to hire someone on h1b urgently. Companies can't wait for this long to get a person.

What freaking low wages are people talking about here? There are millions of jobs outside the IT domain in US. It's hard to find qualified Americans in that sector. I have experienced it first hand.

Hi, I worked in the US on an H1-B Visa for 6 year (between 1998 and 2004) before heading back home to start my own firm.

While in the US, I worked with 2 different companies, for 2.5 and 3.5 years respectively. I did not have any problems with either of them, on the contrary my second employer became the first client after I started my own firm.

Having said what I have said, I would like to add that this "investigation" is a little late - this should have been done a few years ago when there were actual abuses. Now, there isn't a lot of enthusiasm left in going to the US anymore. For instance, I wouldn't be surprised if this year the H1-B quota goes unfilled.

The argument that H1Bs are driving wages down or creating unemployement couldn't have been more inaccurate. Big brand companies like IBM Microsft etc almost always pay higher than market wages. Even the Indian majors like Infosys, TCS pay higher than the prevailing wages. The only guys who pay less are the small body shoppers, but even in their case, the rate paid to these body sheppers by the big corporations who ultimately "use" the workers is much higher than the prevailing wages. It doesn't make any economic sense to hire a H1B if you can find an American to do the job. The only people who want to prove otherwise, are either guys who have lost jobs themselves and are blinded from reality, or people with lesser knowledge of facts, numbers and plain economics. (for instance somebody stating that the Indian software companies pay less than prevailing wages which is absolutely untrue).

An organization facing closure will do what it takes to save itself. If it wants H1Bs to sustain US operations and cant get them, it will have no choice but to relocate to a low cost country, however unfortunate that might be (Like IBM announced yesterday). Sadly, some people will never understand globalization and they will be nowhere to be found (to support their unrealistic theory) when the above happens.

The average American is now used to sustained higher standards of living made possible by unrealistically high wages for their work levels. On the other hand the average H1B is used to comparatively lower wages in his home country and more importantly is much younger and aggressive with respect to his career. He is willing to do anything, move anywhere, work inhuman hours and sacrifice luxury. It is extremely difficult to compete with such guys, even if they are inexperienced to begin with.
There is nothing wrong with Americans, its just a different mindset. Americans save less and spend more. Indians usually spend less and save more (for their future or their family back home). So they dont mind screwing their personal lives up, in return for a brighter future.

The smart (and mature) thing for Americans to do now is to welcome foreign talent, because competition is what creates new, efficient and innovative companies. Instead of trying to protect the jobs going to H1Bs, the objective should be to keep creating even higher level jobs which require knowledge in newer areas. After all, what makes more sense? - trying to revive the low grade manufacturing sector (which has completely relocated to China) or focus on building advanced technology products which the US is best suited to do?

Please check the website
http://www.goolti.com

to know all the possible/impossible frauds, abuses on H1 visa people.

H1 visa is abused at the peak. If any senator/congressman see this website, they will definitely kills this H1B visa program.

Steve,

I would recommend you to project this out,

1. Those H1B guys working in US for more than 5 years and have been going out of the country is taking the wealth of knowledge from this country. It can produce more competitions for US manufacturers.

2. As soon as H1B guy is laid off he has to return to his own country. This means a bigger loss than US postgraduates leaving US.

3. Those H1B guys who are waiting in EAD should be able to start up their own business, employ americans and should not be made scared of USCIS?

For all those Americans out there who keep saying all H1B grads work as cheap Dirts. Here is my story. I work for a leading Tech Company in CA on H1B. My total annual salary is well over 100K. Is that cheap? Almost all H1B guys in my team earn a similar salary. Ofcourse we do have citizens and permanent residents as well and our pay scales are almost similar. Now I want to ask the wise men in this panel a simple question. I spend close to 40-50K to do a masters degree from a leading US univesity. I compete with 100s of students to get in the program and pass it in flying colours. Then in what way am I less qualified than anyone else?

In my opinion the H1B visa process needs a thorough reform. For the sake of both the immigrants as well as US nationals, the IRS and Immig authorties, etc have to come down heavily on the cheap insects who are making a mockery of H1B rules. I also agree with some comments above. The lottery system must be done away with. It pits an MS student from Stanford with a fake degree from Andhra Pradesh in a draw of lots. Also why cant the Immigration authorities maintain a standrad repository and maintain every immigrants job history.If a credit histroy of a person can be tracked why not the employement history?
Lstly guys I love this great land called USA. Its the only country in the world where knowledge gets rewarded justly and I will support any measure to come down heavily on fake degrees and fake experience letters

This is BW investigative reporting ?
It's like asking executives at AIG, Merill, Citi or CountryWide to turn themselves in 2005. You are asking IBM, Infosys, Satyam, Microsoft to do the same. And these are just some big fishes; there are many small and medium companies doing the same.

Steve,

There are lots of US Citizens with very good skills (including IT field) and can be easily trained are without jobs now.

Just because there is a plenty of talent outside USA does not mean, we have to import every talent here. No country can afford it. Let other countries also prospor with those talents!!

Because of this cheap labor (which is touted as expensive by industries for obvious reasons), companies have stopped training employees.

I work for a big company (PROFIT is in billions last year), and *yet* the last training on newer technolgies we had was 5 years ago!!. Yet, I see the contractors from Accenture, Amdocs (most likely on H1b, L1, L2) getting trained at our site in various new technologies. And in few months after the training, the job gets moved offshore via Accenture, Amdocs, etc. It is a pattern that is hard to miss observing.

On Another issue:

Lot of H1Bs/L1s talk about starting their own company here is USA. The reality is, they want to start their own body shopping and they call it, a Business!!. I have more respect for brothels than these body shopping companies. Atleast, in the former one both leaves happy at the end of the day (or hour) !!

Lots of H1B are abused by their H1B/L1 sponsorers. Also, they have seen how easy to make quick bucks with absolutely no risk involved. The head hunter (and staffing firm) business model is one of the greatest business models (and spreading to India too).

When the candidate is employed, they make money. If the candidate loses a job, they fire him (or do not pay). Honestly, it is not business. Business involves some risk. Here in this model, there is no risk. The only risk is from the Immigration system, as they might catch them (chances are 1 in a million, with so much visa frauds all around).

Very few

As some posters had mentioned, refer to the sites, where the actual H1B/L1 candidates are reporting about their employers and some of the comments are as recent as today. :-).

http://www.desicrunch.com/Companies.aspx
and http://www.goolti.com.

I completely agree with the comments of UK_resident, who stated that, a point system need to be introduced. I have done my PhD in India, from one of the best institutes in the world and currently a postdoc in US for the last 4 years with nice track record and job offer from a US based company, but didn't get selected in the lottery continuosly for two years. I dont want to talk about fradulant H1b cases. If the objective of H1B is bring the brightest or talented, why a lottery? I know and i cant let H1B lottery decide my fate, so seriously thinking of other options to pursure my career goals. (Some one suggested me, O1 visa, when i sent my CV and asked the lawyer of the possibilities, his answer was, i dont have a nobel price or equivalent so will not get O1, lol).

Steve

While this incident has nothing to do with h1/l1 visas at workplace, I would like to share it!

This afternoon, I and my American born son were at a mall and when returning a couple of them stopped in front of our car and yelling, go back to India, where is your paper work and some other nasty comments!

Its just a matter of time when the hate rhetoric moves on from internet and tv to workplace!

I have lived in US for 12 years and never once had this kind of experience!

I just hope my toddler son doesn't remember this when he grows up!

Respected Steve,
I have gone through few of the comments posted businessweek.com. Most of the frauds are well known to everyone in the IT industry. All laws are against H1-B holders. When H-1B is filed, job description is generally shown to the applicant. When a labor or I-140 are filed, it is not required to give a copy to the application to the candidate. In slow down, since I could not change the job, my employer filed my labor in EB-3 category. I had more then 9 years of experience. Do you think that employers are saints? Will they not exploit their power if every law is in their favor. Please take the survey of the earning of H-1B holders before they get a EAD or green card and after they get it. There will be a difference of 40% to 80% in most of the cases.

The negative effect of H-1B and L-1 visa can be verified from any current American IT worker and computer science students across the nation.

Almost all big corporations replaced Americans with H-1B holders (either consultant or FTE) in last few years. Please talk to ex-employees of these corporations.

The problem is very SIMPLE to solve. There are too many IT Middle Men between the client and the IT Worker. Weed out the Middle Men. If you don't then you end up with an H1B that works for whatever $$$ is left.

So, the ideal scenario would be the following:
Client -- Bill Rate: 75.00
Vendor -- Takes 30% from the bill rate (15.00 Margin)
IT Worker -- 50.00

I am sure you will find PLENTY of Americans who will work for 50 an hour. HELLO WORLD.... that is like 100,000.00 a year.

Instead what is happening is Vendor is going to ANOTHER Vendor (whom specializes in Outsourcing/H1B). They get their margin leaving the H1B guy with 35.00 an hour. This practice is depressing the IT American Wage.

STOP THE GREED!

There is already a visa for people of extraordinary talent to work in the United States - the O-1 visa. The H1-B visa's best reform would be elimination. The standards for the O-1 visa are very high, but that is what companies are claiming that they need. The "best and the brightest" already have a visa available for them, and the H1-B visa is just a means to import people to drive down wages.

The United States became the leader in science and technology without importing 65,000+ people a year. If the goal is for the United States to become a nation of cheap labor, then, we should not restrict immigration in any way. Besides the human cost of becoming a nation of low-wage workers, we would also stop being the consumers of all the products that the rest of the world creates. The world is already witnessing the results of the downturn in our demand for imports. I would suggest to anyone who supports massive immigration of skilled workers to imagine a United States that imports virtually nothing because the United States middle class no longer exists.

The claims by business that they will be forced to outsource work to other countries is a fallacy. These companies would not be lobbying Congress so vigorously for more H1-B visas if they already had a means of lowering labor costs. If outsourcing everything was possible, it would have been done already.

I do not know of any specific abuses, but I would like to bring your attention to what I consider to be reverse discrimination against American employees by American experts.

I recently wrote this article http://keepamericaatwork.com/?p=1313 where I asked the proponents of H-1B to put up or shut up when the statement was made on CNBC that Americans are basically incompetent.

I have received a lot of attaboys from this article, so apparently many people are very upset with what is happening here in America.

Virgil
http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com

While rampant H1B fraud seems to be a commonplace among IT bodyshoppers and employers, there are also employers in other field that hire H1B on a legitimate basis.

I was on H1 for 6 years in the engineering field working for a multi-billion dollar corporation. I started my career (with a MS degree from a US University) in manufacturing at $65k in 1998 and was at $95k 6 yrs later in a product engineering role, all of them in Detroit metro area.

You can figure out whether I was getting market wages or exploitive wages.

I work in IT and am just plain tired of dealing with the language and cultural hassles that come with being a minority. I am fed up with having the Third World dropped in my lap, and with training people who will compete with me for my last scrap of bread. The debate is over. KILL THE PROGRAM! STOP THE IMMIGRATION!

Here are my suggestions, that balances the need of this country to be competative in a global economy and yet, provide safeguard of jobs for US Citizens.

- Terminate the program H1B (and H4B), L1 (and L2B) immidiately. All these Labor certification process, PERM process, are all fraud process to hoodwink the US public and the immigration.

- Create a new category of Visa (similar to F1) where only students who successfully completes advanced degrees (Min: MS, MBA) from Top 100 schools from USA are eligible to apply. Make those visas independent of any employers, so that they are not bound like slaves (as what is happenning with H1/L1 visaa).

- Provide a Greencard for such candidates after they successfully complete 3 years in this country.

- For candidates who complete their advanced degree, provide Greencard immidiately (without wait for 3 years) if they publish some technical/business articles, etc in a respectable journal (not some local news paper ;-) ), apply for patents, etc.

- Encouraging Greencard via student programs, filters the system from frauds, and improves the schools in USA by bringing competation at educational level.

- By forcing the employer to use ONLY the skilled candidates developed locally, discourages employers outsourcing jobs, as they see more possibility of hiring local talents.

Outsourcing was actually caused by uncontrolled L1 visas and fraud H1B visa programs. The companies such as IBM, Infosys, used these visas very effectively to help themselves costing the country a irreperable loss of skills and confidence, among US Citizens.

Sometimes, even for a complex problem, there exists a simple solution. The solution is, terminate these fraud visa programs.

There are lots of qualified candidates in the preset H1/L1, and we have to figure out a quick and decisive way to identify them. Rest of them can be quickly shipped back home, and they are the one causing lots of job losses to US citizens in this country.

H-1B workers are hired for following reasons.
1. Wages are controlled by increasing the supply more then the demand. American workers loose jobs in the process.
2. H-1B requires sponsorship. The job description can not be changed till the worker gets a green card. The manager and executive love this arrangement. They exploit H-1B holder. He does not get training and he is made to work for long hours at times. H-1B holder can not leave the company even if he is completely dissatisfied. They can not do this to US citizen or green card holder.
3. Big corporations use H-1B and L-1 visa for exploitation of foreign workers in their own country. In India, most of these companies make workers to work for 80+ hours per week minimum by showing carrot of H-1B and L-1 visa. This encourages outsourcing.
4. H-1b visa laws are very harsh for the children of the worker. H-1B holder and his family has to leave immediately if he looses job. The net result of this approach is that the education and emotional life of children is seriously affected. I accepted exploitation because I did not want my children to to leave the country.
5.

My thoughts (am a current H-1B holder)

1) Points based system. If you want the best and the brightest, use the proper system for it.

2) Abolish contract work from H-1B. Again, if you need specific skills that are not widely present, offer a FT job or completely outsource the project. If a short term project requires specific skills, then only the actual company should be allowed to hire the contractor. Dont allow middle men in H-1B

3) Lose the lottery. Worst. Idea. Ever.

4) Preference to US School grads. Maybe increase basic qualification from BS to MS.

Software body-shopping in New Jersey

I'm looking for examples from people who have worked for these outfits in the past, work there now, or have leads for me to others who have. Please e-mail me at steve_hamm@businessweek.com. All replies will be kept confidential.

Simple fix: lose the H-1B tie to the sponsor. That requirement is just 5 years of indenture servitude. Yes, you can go to another sponsor, but what's the difference? But if the H-1B can go to any other employer, the sponsors will have to take steps to keep their H-1Bs. The primary means will have to be wage. You can add various tweaks to keep frauds low, such as requiring new employer to pay at least as much as sponsoring employer.

I've got news for you - the companies that all went to India are DYING.

Apple CLOSED their Indian R&D center in 2005. Google it. Do some research.

Sun went to India and imported workers - stock's now $5.

MS sent work to India and VISTA is the result. Stock's now $15.

Google had to just lay off 200 people. Yep - outsourcing sure has been good for us. Google, by the way was founded by an American (Larry Page) and a Russian who immigrated to USA at AGE NINE and was raised and educated here - Sergei Brin. So don't say "Google was founded by immigrants. Sergei Brin is as American as I am.

The 3rd world workers foist all these lies on the public in order to continue justifying their coming to USA. But look what they have done to our economy. Where are the millions of jobs they promised to create? Where is the economic boom we HAD in the 1990s but THEY destroyed and promised to keep going? The opposite has happened. These imported workers destroy everything they touch.

MIT and Intel had to pull projects out of India because of the fraud and lack of performance. Do a little research.

Companies that employ workers from India and China are dropping like flies.

Apple meanwhile, which employs mostly American developers and has NO R&D done in India is BOOMING and has a stock price of $100.

Connect the dots you fools.

I've got news for you.

Look at HP, they are doing great in this economy.

Look Oracle, they are doing great in this economy.

Look at IBM, they are doing great in this economy.

What do you say about Ford, GM and other companies who makes crappy cars.
Why in the Hell Japan car companies are making too much profit?
Why don't you guys talk about Ford, GM who employees all GREAT AMERICAN engineers to design and make cars.

Housing market is DYING? WHY? How many H1B's are building and selling houses?

Top companies hire only 0.05% of H1B's and the rest are Americans. This includes SUN, GOOGLE, Microsoft, DELL, HP, IBM, etc...
Do you think all these companies hire H1B's because of low wage, hell NO. In these companies H1B's get more than equal to American workers. Companies spent at least 5K everyday for legal fees and immigration fees.

In other hand all these body shopes hire 90% H1B's and 10% of Americans. Do you want to know the reason why?

Because, usually contracting jobs are only for 3 to 6 months and at the most an year.
So can you move to state to state with your family every 3 to 6 months?
No right? Majority of the Americans wont move to a different state for 3 to 6 months contracting job. American don't want to take on short term contracting jobs. H1B's are willing to go to any place for any duration, that's why they are here for and that was the reason we hire them. High flexibility.

Economy is hurting the entire world not just the USA. We all are getting hurt because of some greedy CEO's and politicians mistakes.
So you people just needed a scapegoat for this layoffs and it was H1B workers. Why don't you talk about those H1B's that got laid off with Americans.

What else you have got?

one more thing, dont say that H1B workers are cheap labors. Mostly they are highly paid. It cost more for companies to hire H1B's for short term contract. So money is not always the case.

I agree, we need to fix this immigration system, so that people cannot cheate the system and exploide H1B workers. H1B workers are just like you and me who wants to make a better living.

Thanks Sound Core for the feedback. Very interesting. I hope these companies fail!

This site/blog has some clean info.

http://itcrap.wordpress.com/

Soundcore,
Stop taking those street drugs man.
We are asking for reality, not your hallucinations and delusions. Clean up, and go see a shrink.

I transfered to the US in 2007 on an L1 visa. In 2008 I started the first of the steps to the permenant residence status. My Perm has been approved and now it is on to the next step of approval. So far the approval process is not for me and my abilities, it is merely my company being approved to employ a non-american in a certain position. Due to the time the paper work takes, my company has applied for a H1-B visa to give me an extra year in total. With L1 I can renew once for 2 more years (5 total) and with a H1 it will give me 6 in total.

I have a MSc Eng and 14 years experience, relevant to my position. However as the position requires a BSc and 2 years experience, I cannot file as an EB2 on the labor department side of things, therefore not speed up the process. It is also illegal for my company to design a specific job requiring only my experience and qualifications to push the position into an EB2 category, even though my qualificationa are such.

My wife is in the same employment and visa positions.

The changes I would suggest are:
1. Point system - i.e. the individuals skills and experience are very important.
2. The sponsoring company must be part of the process and must prove the position is real and relevant i.e. the PERM issue.
3. Due to all the back logs in the various processes, it should be possible to extend the visas beyond 5 or 6 years so that you can plan as an individual and your company for the future.

From all of the forums on the web, it is obvious that there is abuse of the system. Come here on an L1 and then apply with a different employer for H1. This is not the purpose of an L1 visa. I admit that I am indentured labour. That is my choice. My salary is within the industry averages otherwise my company could not get my PERM.

I can understand the isolationists perspective in the current economic situation. But I am working hard, paying my taxes, teaching my children to become Americans - this is our home now. If I lose my job I have to get on a plane, I have no claim on the government of the US and I dont expect a hand out.

The last IBM product I bought or WILL EVER BUY was a $200 hard drive that failed spectacularly when the cheap glue (cost savings On the other hand, I continue to drive Ford automobiles - which last for over a decade.
Unlike IBM, Ford has not been a direct beneficiary of taxpayer bailout money.

Its funny that Steve started this discussion with a different purpose and this ends up being a India bashing discussion for some reason. The very same India to whom the US wants to sell over $20 billion worth of defence systems. The very same India that Coke / Pepsico/ Levis / Nike / etc see as great markets for their products. The same India that IBM and Oracle and Dell and Sun sell their IT products to. The same India that GM and Ford and now Harley Davidson see as such great potential markets. Funny that you want to have the cake and eat it too.

Incidently, in 2005 - 2006 about 45% of the H1B were issued to Asians (including Indians). About 25-27% were issued to Indians. Which means that well over 2/3rd H1B were issued to non-Indians.

Did the H1B Indian crowd create this credit crisis? No, they did not. It was the very highly US university educated Americans who did. For what? For the great American greed.

So stop the India bashing and come back to the sanity that this blog deserves. Having said the above, I do agree that yes lots of the body shopping guys have cheated both the US and the Indian workers, but they should not be the reason that you despise the Indians.

Have you ever thought about the fact that these H1B and L1 visa holders pay the same taxes as the US citizens and still not get the same benefits / perks that the citizens do? Maybe its time you thought about the exploitation that these H1B visa holders also undergo, only because they still believe in the great American dream, the same dream that every US citizen has... that of having a good life for his family.

Please stop these racist bashing and come back to the sanity of the discussion. Please.

There have been numerous comments to articles about the need to reduce H1B visas and foreigners in America. If Americans want all foreign workers out of their country the same should apply to Americans living in foreign countries. Companies in Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong, mainland China and London should all revisit the Americans on their payroll. Most locals in these countries working in IT or in financial institutions are all highly educated from the best schools in the world and have comparable skills to Americans. Furthermore, for the countries where a second language is necessary many Americans have not learned the local language whether it is Japanese or Chinese. (I have yet to hear of a H1B visa holder who cannot speak, read or write English). Job offers extended for Americans in all those countries should be rescinded. Americans can all go home back to America and then take the jobs that have been vacated by the H1B visa holders. Unfortunately there are thousands of Americans working in the countries above so the positions vacated by the H1B visas will not be sufficient to cover them. I am sure all the Americans in America who are clamoring for the H1B visa program to be terminated can clearly explain the rational to their fellow Americans coming home. It should not be a one way street. America is a great place to work for an ambitious person but so is the rest of the world and what seems to escape most Americans is that there are thousands of Americans living and working in a foreign county on a work visa granted to them.

If the price of India buying US defense products is for a neverending flood of H-1Bs/L-1s, then I say go buy ALL your defense gear from Russia. Go ahead and cancel your orders for anti-submarine aircraft. Boeing may suffer, but even then, we'll survive. The Indian H-1Bs have destroyed the tech professions as a worthwhile occupation in the USA.

Like it or not, there is a compact between the US citizen and American society that the imported job thieves have breached. American business continually insults US citizens by calling us incapable of tech work, and bringing in huge numbers of foreigners. In doing so, they have said in no uncertain terms; "Bust your Ass, go to school, get a tech degree, and be unemployed or underpaid, because we consider your labor fungible by H-1Bs." And consider that all through this, the American techie is subject to the military draft while the H-1B is not because they are here ONLY to steal an American's job, and NOT to be a full-spectrum US CITIZEN.

That's why I think the BEST weapon against the H-1B is for the US employees whose jobs are being stolen to take advantage of the US DOL regulations that state the H-1B LCA must be posted in the workplace. Who knows more about what a job requires than the the guy whose job is being filched by an H-1B? The process is simple: For EACH H-1B LCA being applied for, make a copy, and a detailed critique concerning which American's job is being stolen, along with the experience level and education requirement of the ACTUAL job, rather than the H-1B/HR boilerplate used to hire these allegedly "specially qualified" Indians. Send these to your FEDERAL Representatives and Senators. By doing this, you bypass the news media who is in the pocket of American buisnesses and the Company PR hacks who continually shill the "H-1B shortage."

Here's my H1B visa experiences:

Entry level jobs like testers and junior business analysts are taken away from American College graduates by Indians who can barely speak English. Analyzing problems or getting input from them takes 3x as long because I can't understand what they are saying and they disrupt the social atmosphere of the office by being anti-social to American workers and speaking Indian in a crowded room where if the tables were turned they would be insulted.

With that said there are good H1B Visa holders who contribute to the work environment and help make it a positive atmosphere instead of dividing it. Unfortunately that's the exception and not the norm.

If I were to go to India, China, Britain or Brazil I would learn the language and customs and not expect their people to adapt to me instead of me adapting to them.

This issuse should be unbaised. Every country needs international people to grow. All ready we have ruined our country lets save by struggling and coming up. Why do we always need the smooth road. We should learn from international how to to grow. The financial world here is ruined because of Americans(us) Let beleive on survival of fittest. I think the rule for stricting the immigration is crap no student will come her to study if he knows that there is job visa problem, and we will have losses. Why do we want to ruin this country because of selfish needs ...grow up guys

Steve,

There is an easy way to stop H1B (and possible L1) fraud. The H1B program is designed to primarily do two things:

1. Allow American companies to fulfill open positions with candidates from other countries.
2. Attract the creme-de-la-creme across the world to come to America and stay here for good.

If that is the case, then when the American company gets a person here on H1B, it should be forced to either send him back at the end of 1 year or to apply for his Permanent Residency - which will be expedited.

Thus, the H1B employer must either release the employee or send them back to their Home country. This way, either America gains another highly skilled worker or else the bodyshopper pays a hefty fee and at the end of a year, has to let the employee go to work elsewhere (i.e. end of revenue)

@Joe,

You've got to stop smoking whatever it is that you are on.

If entry level jobs are being given to people who cannot communicate, then what is your Recruiter doing? Oh wait, perhaps the Recruitment's been outsourced to India as well? It's clear to me that your company ain't going nowhere fast.

If you look at crime by immigrants, you'll notice right away that immigrants from India are very low on crime and very high on following the rules.

There are some exceptions of course, but by and large, these folks do assimilate to a large degree into American society. Of course, it will take them a generation or two to become what you would term 'American'.

I do admire your point about going native when in a foreign country. I also admit that you are the only American I've come across who actually even THOUGHT THAT FAR - no one else even wants to even go global.

In the U.S., employers used to pay $12-$15 an hour to Americans to answer the telephones. Now, employers pay $65 an hour for Indians to answer the telephones and Americans hang up on them. How does this make business sense? Oh yeah, I get it. The H1B body shops contract with the U.S. government. Again, Americans are paying more for less. Everybody knows that Americans aren't qualified to answer the telephones. Yeah, right!

To those who doubt the fact that Indians (not all) are not obnoxious and annoying with their groupism at work (talking in their native tongue) and that they are law abiding -here :

http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/apr/04/fake-work-visas-us-court-indicts-5.htm

being of indian origin myself, this does put me to shame.

Its time that my H1B hungry Indian fellas realise that they are not painting a very rosey picture across the corporate world.

I work in accounting. I am astonished by the amount of hate on this page.

One thing: yes, H1-B visa workers are OBLIGATED to show their pay stubs when they apply for renewing their visas. It's very easy to see how much they are getting paid. Those who lied will be caught eventually but in the meantime, people are just barking at one another like dogs.

What a waste! It doesn't surprise me that this country will soon declare bankruptcy as a whole. After all, for every LEGAL TAX PAYING H1-B worker, 100 undocumented immigrants from Mexico work without paying taxes. Eventually, they get green cards and we begin feeding them with unemployment benefits. The numbers aren't adding up on my spreadsheet, friends. Or rather, I get a large negative number.

The total revenue of all Indian outsourcing companies combined is about 10 Billion USD. Is this number enough to bring entire US economy down?

It is a fraction of revenue of any major US Computing Company (Oracle - 21B, IBM - 100B, Google - 21B, Microsoft - 60B).

I can't understand how 65000 foreign workers cause millions of job losses and put millions more jobs at risk?

Offshoring has caused some job losses in IT and might have put wages under pressure but blaming economic crisis squarely on IT offshoring doesn't seem to make any numerical sense, though it surely does have a psychological appeal when reasons to the issue are not obvious.

I wonder if even 65000 people would apply for H1B this year, with current economic scenario and an evident backlash against them.

I think there is a lot of useless discussion going on.. The H1b fraud goes on because US creates barriers to trade while preaching free markets to the world.. Why should we let Americans to exports their stuff to us when they create barriers for what we have to offer..
when we let Microsoft/Boeing sell its products in our country, why should they stop us offering services to them..

And as a side note, I think it is merely 10 years before Chinese stop wanting to come to America and may be 15-20 years before the same happening for Indians..
And there will be this discussion going on somewhere about the fraud Americans are committing to come to India..
LUke

First of All we need to think separately about the people who work here through the companies and people who run into illegal practices to enter america.
Most of the people i know come through a company sponsorship. Either it is US based company looking for specialized labour through H1 or Indian based comapny which needs to send employers to client location , off course on demand from the client. So the point is there is a Demand and supply.

L1's have no choice but to be company dependent and they are sent here . now can you blame any person who is asked to carry out his activities from Onsite. Please dont be under the impression that Indians Die to come to America. there can be exceptions but not everyone wants to leave his four walls. Eventually the person realises that he has least pay compared to his peers , with or without less exp than him. Do you think its great to make it to office daily with these feelings and also that he was never asked if he wanted H or L visa. Atleast H1B has minimum wage law but L1 doesnt.

Point is that employees have to be separated from this whole hate scenario thats developing. understand they have little choice and especially in these times when you cant say no.

Coming to H1 B visas. Yes some people do come willingly but why not , if there is an option. Its wrong though to come illegally but than cant be targetted for economic crisis.

stop blaming people coming here for job for this crisis.its not H1B and L1 and other work visas. Its the corruption and frauds happening at major scale at wall street.

We have to understand that Indians are born to work hard and they get the sense of responsibilty early in the age and thus are ready to sacrifice comfort and let me say again their four walls just to get there. If someone is here just let the poor guy do his work and always keep in mind that not everyone is happy to be here.

Instead of tagetting on the incompetencies , by judging only small percentage of people around you, may be you need to open your eyes wide . there is much to learn from other cultures especially India

The fraud is that many highly educated Americans are out of work during these economic times and still we are processing new requests.

If you move all of the found excuses aside, it is nothing short of hiring replacement workers at a lower rate, and laying off Americans.

I have a good news to share. Many Indians do not want to live in USA any more. They will happily work in India if they need to stay close to family or go to more welcoming places like Singapore / Australia.

About three years ago, I was working as a consultant at Northern Trust in a Systems Architect/Support role. I was asked to deploy an anti-money laundering system.

They used my advanced skills to do the most complex tasks. After being on the job for less than three months, I was well ahead of the planned project schedule. I was asked to leave the project before it was completed.

I feared that I had done something wrong, but in my exit interview I was told that I had done everything asked of me.

There were still at least three months left on the project, yet I was replaced by an Indian who did not possess my advanced skills.

Upon reflection, I realized that my replacement was compensated at half (or less) of my rate.

I agree with some points of the author “Free Market”. But this agreement is relative which primarily depends upon the situation of economy. If the economy is doing well then nobody would care, but if there are job losses like current economy then obviously people would care. So outsourcing, H1B policies are itself not wrong but the circumstances can make it wrong. Any one would be definitely hurt if their livelihood is in danger, that’s basic tendency of human nature. If for example there would be outsourcing jobs from India to Bangladesh, China , trust me Indians won’t like it. So I think in these circumstances H1 B programs and L1 programs should be cut down(for time being), regarding outsourcing it’s the organization’s choice.
But what is clearly WRONG is the abuse of these programs. I had seen many Indian companies and people abuse these programs. People would just fake their resumes based on the requirement, increase their experience even if they don’t have it. This is really wrong not only for Americans but for everyone , as some folks are not fairly playing in the job market. Such kind of people should be deported. I would like to ask author to do some analysis on this, if I am not wrong almost 40-50 % are such cases.

Graduated in 2002 with a BSEE and a BSCS from a fairly prestigous university. 2002 was a year when tech firms were firing people by the tens of thousands, and no new grads were being hired. Haven't been able to get a job in the field at all, and now recruiters are telling me that I'm "out of date" (even though none of my training was really specific to any technologies that have changed in the past 7 years).

H1-B's and L-1's have ruined my life, and those of most of my fellow graduates, who are on a treadmill of unemployment and underemployment, despite having earned EE and CS degrees, amongst the most difficult degrees to earn in America today.

America needs to get Americans back to work. If this means deporting all the H1-B's -- great. There is no shortage of qualified US-born, US-raised, and US-educated science and engineering professionals, and to claim that H1's or L1's are needed to fill those positions is, at best, an outright lie.

The Visa program is merely a mechanism for reducing wages of the US worker. Why are foreign companies awarded H1s at all? Is there any correlation between campaign contributions and foreign companies receiving visas?

H1s should never be contracted out. If a company identifies a talent shortage, they should be required to pay 120% of the salary in demand. Wouldn't the free market dictate that?

Further, I am a hiring manager, and we are being forced to use H1 visa applicants only. I have to fill out a form explaining why I didn't hire one! This is due to cost.

American workers are superior to Indian replacements. I have a team of 7 in India that report to me, they produce the equivalent of about 2 American workers. And usually we have to fix the code when it comes back. The thought that we would lose anything by not importing this cheap labor is ridiculous. With that said, I am sure there are certain workers from India that could offer a great deal, just not kids 5 years out of school without any practical experience.

All workers from India that have worked for me do not innovate, they merely follow orders.

A country's decision to reduce it's immigration has nothing to do with free markets.

http://www.dailyindia.com/show/311552.php

London, May 7: Three Indian illegal immigrants are reported to be behind the biggest visa scam in British history.

According to The Telegraph, they were so confident of fooling the Home Office that one of them offered their services on a no win, no fee basis, a court has heard.

The three offered foreigners access to Britain for cash by submitting hundreds of bogus immigration visa applications in 18 months, all of which were rubber-stamped by the Home Office.

The gang ran a fraud factory creating thousands of counterfeit documents and enabling hundreds to cheat border control.

Can H1B Worker deal in forex?

An ongoing federal probe into H-1B visa fraud leads to many arrests and the indictment of IT services firm Vision Systems Group The controversy over the H-1B visa program for cheap labor workers is heating up once again. Federal agents detained many Indians in six states as part of a wide investigation into suspected visa fraud, those arrested are accused of fraudulently representing themselves or other workers in immigration documents. Besides the arrests, Vision Systems Group, an IT services firm based in South Plainfield, N.J., with a branch office in Coon Rapids, Iowa, was indicted on 10 federal counts, including conspiracy and mail fraud charges. The firm allegedly used fraudulent documents to bring H-1B visa workers into the U.S. The government is seeking the forfeiture of $7.4 million from Vision Systems that was gained through the alleged offenses. Five other technology companies, including Worldwide Software Services and Sana Systems in Clinton, Iowa, remain under investigation for document fraud, prosecutors said. "We are only at the tip of iceberg as to where this [investigation] leads.

All,

Visa fraud is rampant by the leading companies (not just Indian owned but the large American ones). The H1-B program needs to be revamped by the government since the corporations fail to investigate and police their third party providers. Their are some good suggestions above that a panel could decide the statistical and fair merits on. If specialized skills truly exist the L-1 program is the correct path. H1B is not intended to be what it has become. Their is no lack of American IT workers that want to work right now. If the H1B holders really love this country because of it's great opportunity then I encourage you to become a US citizen, and then join the military. Maybe then you will understand the true sacrifice many Americans have made as you continue to rake in the fruits of this great nation.

You know it is not always as it looks like. I, myself came to the US on a L1 for the past 3+ years, to continue to work for the same company. As stated a L1 visa is for a intercompany transfer. My job got outsourced in Ireland to vendors in Poland and India. I wanted to keep working for the company and decided to apply for a similar function in the US. Now, did I take a job from someone in the US? I don't think so. I already had the experience and knowledge of the industry. I had international experience (which some of my peers do not have). I get paid less and I can't bargain, because... were else can I go?

Just wanted to say... think before you write... We all come from immigrant families... Do you here a native American complain about outsourcing of jobs...

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts.

So you are taking about small 0.0003% niche of US workforce with so much hate? About immigrants that are doing maybe 0.1% of all crimes usually white collar? Where all this hate come from?

I am from Europe. I am here on L1, I am sure my taxes are higher than salary of many of you. I have to pay medicaid and social security which I never use. OK, I don't have to serve in military, bu when it was last time you had to go? Vietnam?

I assure you, above average US worker never been outside his Hicksville or state. You want such guys to run international business? To coordinate sales with French, Japanese people? To deploy HR systems in Italy? You know, we have thing nowadays called international markets and globalization.

I have great suggestion for you. Found your own company and employ just American citizens. It's THAT simple.

Oh, you might go bankrupt because people won't buy your overpriced products. Well, though sh*t buddy, that's capitalism and free market. That's America.

Oh wait, you want regulations, state controlled immigration, quotas, duty for imported goods... hypocrites much?

I was working for a good company in India and came to the US on a H1B and was shocked to see the Indian companies exploiting the H1B visa. Its total fraud and think its high time both the US and Indian governments step in to counter this.

When the H1B holder demands for his / her rights they are put down by 90% of their employers with a threat to withold the wages , cancellation of H1B.

Would be good if the USCIS or DOL in various US states can come up with a page on their website to take inputs from people who were exploited by various Indian companies

There have been years of relentless clamoring by the Americans about the need to reduce H1B visas and foreigners in America. Now that it has happened (as seen by the results of the H1B visa supply) the same should apply to Americans living in foreign countries. Companies in Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong, mainland China and London should all revisit the visas extended to Americans. Most locals in these countries working in IT or in financial institutions are all highly educated from the best schools in the world and have comparable skills to Americans. Furthermore, for the countries where a second language is necessary many Americans have not learned the local language whether it is Japanese or Chinese. (I have yet to hear of a H1B visa holder who cannot speak, read or write English). Job offers extended for Americans in all those countries should be rescinded and their visas should not be extended. Americans can all go home back to America and then take the jobs that have been vacated by the H1B visa holders. Unfortunately there are thousands of Americans working in the countries above so the positions vacated by the H1B visas will not be sufficient to cover them. I am sure all the Americans in America who are clamoring for the H1B visa program to be terminated and the TARP program can clearly explain the logic to their fellow Americans coming home. It should not be a one way street. If Americans treat foreign nationals in a certain way the way the respective foreign nations treat Americans when they are in a foreign country should be along the same lines. America is a great place to work for an ambitious person but so is the rest of the world and what seems to escape most Americans and their law makers is that there are thousands of Americans living and working in a foreign county on a work visa granted to them.

Everybody these days talk about H1B and L1B visa and how it is impacting US citizens. Because H1B and L1B have got lot of attention these days, firms have resorted to other alternative like B1 (Business) visa. Most of the high tech workers come on B1 visa and works as consultants for clients in US for around 3 months. Firm does not have to pay salary to the candidate but only per diem, so they do not pay any taxes. All these resources actually do billable work in the US. Abuse of B1 visa has to stop.

Wake up folks,
The H1 be has limitation at leas those people stay here and work and pay tax, think about the L1 visa those consulting companies like Congnizant files tens of thousands of L1 visas and bring their spouses with L2 visa ( there is no limitation on L2 Visa) and worst of all they both can work together same time. H1B visa the dependents can't work.above all L1 visas are not supposed to work at the client site(like H1B), but 90 % of the L1 visas are working at the client and help to move the job offshore.

Kick the bums out unemployments at 10% offically and in real numbers probably
in the 20 to 25% range bcoz these bastards dont count long term/people who stopped looking unemployed and at the douche's who are saying that just bcoz US set up a few
busineses in Gandhiland doesnt mean crap

cant make it cuz you dont have the skills
always remember the master who taught all of you what software is and then
let you come here to beg for scraps
US is the undisputed king in the whole world and it doesnt owe any1 anything
I say kick out all the H1 L1 scabs and keep em out until all the American workers have jobs

Bush Wanker :

Nice comment, I guess YOU should provide where your parents and grand parents and grand grand parens come from.

I Bet 100% NOT FROM USA, because all the REAL american are living in Reservates, USA is build from Imigrants like you.

therefore, sorry but SHUT UP if you don't have a clue.

Sorry I left out the statistics link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-1_visa

Isn't it interesting that this year (2009) there are still 20,000 H-1B left that no companies have applied for 4 months after the dead line were they usually all are taken?
This is because the recession has made it impossible for banks and other TARP precipitants to hire people from abroad for a job that an American can fill and it is quite a stretch in this economy to argue that you can not find a qualified IT worker in the US.
http://www.usadiversitylottery.com/us-visa/h-1b-visa/

The H1B program should be abolished. There is something inherently evil in a government that perpetuates a fraud on its citizens and favors corporate interests over the public welfare.
Americans are fed up!

I agree with Mike. I completely agree that the American workers are much superior and efficient in technology / communications compared to the most of the H1B foreign workers. It is completely bullshit that the hiring managers could not find an american worker when millions of americans are loosing their job.

In New York / New Jersey area most of the hiring managers (especailly Asians) only hires H1Bs due to low wages and the kind of control and command they can have on these foreign workers. On top of it they work like dogs for more than 10 hours and only bill for 8 hours.

Someone recently told me that hiring managers also get certain part of their billing rate. After all these cuts H1B worker still gets good money (when converted to their local currency) while american worker stays home on unemployment.

Yes. Bring on more H1s.

My comment concerns what I am currently seeing at my current employer. I joined this company less than one year back it is a telecom multinational not based in the US but expanding here as their products are priced way below the competition.

They are from Asia and expanding around the world at a very fast pace. One practice I see they have which I think is illegal is to bring in people from their home base mainly engineers to work on client projects here in the US on B1 visas. These engineers are clearly working here not doing business and they stay here the maximum the visa allows then try to get extended. When this does not work they bring a new replacement so you will see many new people throughout the project. In order to get this constant flow I heard that for every resource they need here they put forward around 20 B1 applications to our embassy as most get rejected so that some will get through, such numbers are no problem for them as they have over 50K employees and send engineers with other experience to different jobs such as a IC designer to do test engineering, etc.

In addition they only get paid around 10% of what the prevailing wage is in the US this is paid to them in their home country and the company rents apartments here for them to share and live in while in the US plus they get a daily allowance for food which is about 35% what a US employer would give for food per diem here.

In addition the middle management most of whom are here from the home country on L1 visas tends to hire local staff who are from the same said Asian country but have worked in the US after being on H1-B at other firms for enough time to get there Green Cards and puts them in charge thus as an engineer with many years experience I have been delegated to background work and support such as acting as a driver in the field as most of these B1 engineers do not drive and taking them to customer meetings or driving around in the field as they do their work.

Any training on their products is non-existent and if one complains we are told to be proactive and learn from OJT that doe not happen when you are just the driver. That way they have the excuse that local staff does not know their products and can continue this process which is good for them to keep cost low.

I do not know if anyone in the government is looking into these kinds of violations. Feedback would be welcomed.

Check the L1B over-utilization. You will find why americans are losing jobs and H1B wages are so depressed.

L1B guys are not supposed to work at client place. But all the big consulting firms get people from india and place them into client site.

see the rules here.
http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/Nonimmigrant_Empl.pdf

Can an L-1B nonimmigrant work at a site other than that of the petitioning employer?

No. An L-1B temporary worker can no longer work primarily at a worksite other than that of their petitioning employer if the work will be controlled or supervised by a different employer or if the offsite work arrangement is essentially to provide labor for hire, rather than service related to the specialized knowledge of the petitioning employer.

Also see this.

There is no limitation on number of L1B which a company can bring here.

Is there a numerical limitation on the number of workers a U.S. employer can petition for based on an approved blanket or individual L-1 petition?

No. There is no numerical limitation on the number of people an employer could petition for based on an approved blanket or individual L-1petition. However, the employer must first demonstrate the need for the amount of employees being petitioned for.

Also

L1B spouses can work here being a dependent and not H1B spouses. You at least 1.5 more jobs for L1B.

Can the dependents of an L-1 nonimmigrant work in the United States?

Yes. The L-2 spouse of an L–1 can work in the United States by filing an Application for Employment Authorization (I-765) at the USCIS Service Center noted on the Form I-765. However, minor children may not be employed under the L-2 classification.

All the big 4 Indian IT outsourcing companies, i believe have at least 150000 L1B workers here and then you have B1 Visa abuse.
I know so many companies who get people on B1 and those guys go and work and actually coding in .net or java at client place.

The top IT outsourcing companies misuse the L1B quota (TCS, INFOSYS, CTS, WIPRO PATNI and now IBM), and then
the body shopping companies (all NY-NJ based indian shops) misuse the H1B quota but its easy to kill the body shoppers. Even then i have a question.
Lets say on an average 65000 multiplies by 7 = 455000 jobs are given on H1B. H1B is valid for 7 years. We all know H1B to green card is rare in cases of indian outsourcing companies. They do not file green card for H1B guys anyway. The amount of jobs lost in last seven years is equal to one month job losses which usa has experienced in last 2 years. So how are the H1B guys taking up the USA intelligent guys jobs.

All you really need to get into SAP marketplace is a good connection. I was at a project run by Hitachi Consulting. Hitachi hired one of their VP's brother from Brazil and got him on H1 to be development manager. This guy has no idea of SAP. VP's name is Roberto Kristen and his development manager brother is Lincoln Kristen. One of my buddy revealed few of Lincoln's insite about SAP projects as below:
1) Developers will create User Documentation and Technical training documents.
2) Development team needs to be prepared for post production defects; as sales order cycle is always only tested in production system.
BTW guy does not even know difference between Application server and Presentation server.
No doubt so many SAP projects are failing.
God help us.
-Santiago

I was at Toyota where systematically, every Job regardless of skill was replaced by foreign workers. It was not just "hard to find" skilled workers but even people in customer service who do nothing more than answer calls and record the customer complaints. Its a large scale strategy by companies to drive wages down. Not sure how these workers are coming in but no sane government should allow this outrage. And then we wonder why sales are diving for everything from cars to shoes. Its consumer backlash. Come to your senses corporate america. Or else this race to the bottom will bring us all down including you !!

Manu,

What a moron are you?

Also have the common sense to understand that the fraud of placing H1Bs on a job is comitted by the recruiters and IT managers. It is plain and simple.

- Most of H1Bs can not communicate well in meetings
- They get paid low wages
- They work overtime without claiming any money for additional hours
- Sometime the IT manager gets a part of their billing rate or sometime IT Manager him/her self got a stake in the recruiting company
- Finally lot of times, IT managers think they get more control / command on H1Bs over choosing an american experienced worker.

I have worked in the tech industry for 10 years and have watched Americans be replaced by foreign workers. Those complaining about the tone of some of the comments here don't seem to get it.

I take no shame in stating that I support what is best for my own people over what is best for others. Our government's obligation is to the citizen and not to the corporation or some ideology such as free trade.

Many are unemployed and can't find work while at the same time jobs are offshored and foreigners are invited in to work in our industries. This is unjust. Returning immigrants to their countries of origin and preventing American companies from locating jobs outside the US will increase the opportunities for American citizens. Therefore, I support it.

Further, there are other considerations besides the economy. I desire to live in a country based on the culture of the West and none other. We need to protect ourselves from cultural replacement also.

It would equally compelling and energizing if you wrote a detailed article and account of the abuse American workers have suffered as a result of the H1B (L1b, etc.) The best place to start your research, ... is to research the IT "techie" blogs (like Dice.com) and off you go.... These are educated, degreed, experienced and intelligent posters, who in many cases are out of work, or out of a career due to the direct impact that the H1B program and outsourcing has had. This issue is a real onion pealer, meaning it's multi-dimensional and hard to explain to the lay person, but it's a MASSIVE issue that is picking up speed. I'm happy to assist in providing the research I've done over the last year and there's a plethora of research on Dice, CNN , Numbers.USA, etc. In this economy, I think your readers would rather bring to light the abuses that are happening to them right now - especially in this economy. I have a good job, however unfortunatley was forced out of an IT career in large due to the above mentioned issue. Good luck.

ITGal

In all the discussion above people seem to forget that large numbers of americans go abroad in the opposite direction.

I work in the UK and my company has large numbers of americans working here in london, when all their positions could have been filled by UK resources.

Globabilization works both ways!

See this latest article:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_45/b4154034724383.htm

Loss of engineering jobs do not appear on US GDP.

Don't forget Nike inc that hired Wipro and Infosys as their FUEL partners and laid off about 50% of the entire US hired IT department. Someone should punish them. They are a US based company that relies very heavily on the US market for a huge part of their revenue.