H-1B visas used by firm to create low-cost workforce, U.S. alleges

[LiberalEsto]

35. Here's some testimony from House Immigration Subcommittee hearings & more

Note that these article excerpts were written 10 years apart, and the fraud problems remain.

My husband has worked in IT since 1984 and has seen many of his colleagues lose their careers to H1-B visa holders. His brother in another state, also an IT worker, has been unemployed or underemployed for more than a decade.

http://www.techlawjournal.com/employ/19990506.htm

May 1999

"Witnesses at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims said that fraud by both visa recipients and corporate sponsors is rampant, that government agencies do not have the resources to deal with the problem, and the recipients of fraudulently obtained visas are rarely prosecuted or deported.

These reports led Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who presided at the hearing, to question witnesses, "What is the point of having all these visa laws on the books if we don't take any action against the people who violate them?" and "Does that sound like an immigration system that is working?"

Rep. Edward Pease (R-IN) asked one panel of witnesses, "Why is it that we are not prosecuting the folks who are the beneficiaries of illegal activity?" Michael Bromwich, Inspector General of the Department of Justice, answered that "the system would be flooded with cases."

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http://www.siliconvalleyimmigrationlawyer.com/2009/10/silicon-valley-h1b-employers-w.html

Silicon Valley H-1B Employers Will Face Tougher Challenges in Light of Fraud Reports

October 3, 2009

"Like most H-1B employers, Silicon Valley employers need to start over-documenting their H-1B petitions and increasing the material provided about the sponsoring employer, as well as about the employee and the proposed job. Recent reports of fraud in the H-1B program, as well as Senator Grassley's vocal proposals to tighten screening of H-1B employers have cast a cloud of fraud onto the H-1B program.

The cover article in the October 12, 2009 Business Week issue is called "America's High-Tech Sweat Shops: How U.S. companies may contribute unwittingly to the exploitation of foreign workers". This article highlights the various ways in which some H-1B employers have abused the visa system, and taken advantage of unknowing foreign nationals seeking work in the U.S. Fraud ranges from employers: charging potential H-1B workers exorbitant fees as high as $15,000 to submit visa applications; allowing potential H-1B workers to pay fees and obtain an H-1B visa only to come to the U.S. and find that the employer does not have a paying job for them; siphoning off H-1B employees' wages; failing to pay H-1B employees between contract jobs - also called "benching"; to employers claiming that an H-1B worker is employed in a low-wage metropolitan area so that a lower wage can be paid - but actually employing the H-1B worker in a higher wage area.

Unfortunately, the Business Week article is just one of several recent highlights of H-1B fraud. Last week Senator Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote a letter to the new head of the USCIS, Alejandro Mayorkas, pushing for tighter restrictions on H-1B employers. His letter referenced the USCIS' 2008 internal assessment of compliance in the H-1B program. Although the 2008 USCIS report showed a rate of error in H-1B applications of almost 20%, Senator Grassley characterized these errors as fraud, whereas only 13% were found to be fraud and 7% were considered to be technical errors. In his letter to Director Mayorkas, Grassley requested more information from petitioning employers to assure that work is waiting for H-1B employees and they will not be "benched"."