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

[primavera]

52. Well, I never said the program was perfect

I'm sure that, like most government agencies, those charged with enforcing compliance with the regs are overworked and underfunded and stuff slips through the cracks. I also have no difficulty believing that there are unscrupulous, unethical employers (and unscrupulous, unethical attorneys representing them) who have managed to find cracks and crevasses through which to finagle unqualified applicants. And I agree, that's disgraceful, not only because of the harm it does to the US workforce, but to the reputation of a program that serves a legitimate and essential purpose in US immigration policy. All I can say is that I have, in my lifetime, prepared and reviewed literally hundreds of H-1B petitions. I've read the applicants' resumes, reviewed their school transcripts, their letters of recommendation; I've reviewed the wage surveys and the HR compensation reports of countless petitioning employers; I've reviewed the job descriptions and those of the US workers in comparable positions; I've prepared the public inspection materials every H-1B employer is required by law to maintain, so that any member of the public can instantly know who is being hired, to perform what functions, at what wages, how they compare to other employees engaged in comparable work, and how to contact the Department of Labor if there is anything even remotely fishy going on; and I've participated in audits that were done of employers. I am about as pro-labor a lefty as you could possibly hope to meet and yet, in all of those H-1B petitions, I only recall one that struck me as being dubious. The applicant was the personal friend of a high muckety-muck at a major software company and they pressured the firm where I was working to get his application approved even though he didn't strictly speaking meet the visa's requirements. Since they were a major source of legal fees for the firm, the firm caved and, over my opposition, engaged in some... shall we say, creative lawyering, to shoehorn the guy into the position. All the rest, though, were all totally above board. The employers paid the H1B workers the same as the US workers, the H-1B workers were hired because they possessed specialized skills that were unobtainable elsewhere, everything was as it should be. True, I've only worked with respectable firms which represented respectable clients, who had reputations to protect and strong incentives to avoid tarnishing their images with potential scandals and legal problems, and undoubtedly the same cannot be said for every employer, or every law firm, for that matter. I guess I'd just urge people to resist the temptation to paint every H-1B employee/employer with the same brush. Again, I'm certain that abuses do exist - every program ever invented has its fair share of problems - and I agree they should be addressed, but I sincerely believe that the vast, overwhelming majority of H-1B participants are legit and constitute a benefit to the US economy. My experience may only be anecdotal, but it's a significant amount of anecdotal experience, and I just don't see this as being the festering pit of corruption that so many here are so eager to depict is as.