Feds Consider H-1B Changes After Uncovering Fraud

CWmike writes "A Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman said today that the agency is weighing a series of reforms to the H-1B application process, including the use of 'independent open-source data' to obtain information about visa seekers or the companies that file the petitions on their behalf. The move follows a report by the agency that found widespread problems and evidence of fraud in the nation's H-1B program, including forged documents, fake degrees and shell companies being used in H-1B applications. It also comes after the controversy caused by changes to the H-1B rules earlier this year."

Comments

Why reform?

[plopez]

Just get rid of it.

There is no labor shortage to begin with in the first place:

http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/itaa.real.html

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/85/essay.html

http://www.upenn.edu/researchatpenn/article.php?708&bus

http://techtoil.org/wiki/doku.php?id=articles:shortage_myth

Re:h1b and L1

[infinite9]

Example for a unix admin - 100+ per hour is paid by company A to vendor V, V keeps 35% and gives 65 to H1B holding company H, H pays about 30 to the employee who is new in USA or 40 if he is more than 2 years old in usa. H1b end up getting exploited till GC(6 to 8 years). L1s too get exploited but they are happy because they are rotated every year. So they have less expenses(no need to buy car or family home) in usa and carry all money as savings to india/china.
Since h1b corp to corp is expensive, candidate has to be really skilled, but some do manage by changing clients(A) every 3 to 6 months by slipping through a phone interview(some one else giving the phone int in their name). On being found out they are fired in 3 to 6 months. Yet they manage to settle in low tech areas like managing remedy tickets etc in about 2 years of hire-fire cycle. So in downturn, h1bs are fired first, then the citizen employee and are replaced by L1. L1's don't get overtime pay. They get about 3 to 4 k per month and yet that is a very good money because in india they get max 1k per month for 1+ year experience.

None of this sounds right to me. I'm a 17 year IT consultant in chicago. What I've seen is that the majority of H1s can't find their ass. Typically two or three are needed to replace the american being fired. Obviously there are exceptions. But the vast majority are really quite useless. They're hired because upper management thinks IT workers are lego bricks. You can just unplug one and plug in another with no intangible cost to the company. Gardner told them so.

Also, the bill rate numbers you quote are way off. I've never seen an H1 anywhere hired for $100 an hour. I'd say $60 is pretty much max. Otherwise, why wouldn't the end client just hire an american? There's a financial incentive for the client to hire an H1.

Usually, there's no extra middleman for H1s. The consulting firm billing them out is host for the visa.

I agree that L1s are a huge loophole. But usually, they come in when an indian corporation like TCS (tata) comes in an takes over an entire IT department. Then they can place an army of indians at the client because the project manager probably works for TCS also. I seriously doubt consultants on L1 visas get sent alone to a client.