Slashdot Mirror
Trump Administration Cracks Down On H-1B Visa Abuse (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN Money: The Trump administration is cracking down on companies that get visas for foreign workers and farm them out to employers. Some staffing agencies seek hard-to-get H-1B visas for high-skilled workers, only to contract them out to other companies. There's nothing inherently illegal about contracting out visa recipients, but the workers are supposed to maintain a relationship with their employers, among other requirements. In some cases, outsourcing firms flood the system with applicants. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency said in a new policy memo released Thursday it will require more information about H-1B workers' employment to ensure the workers are doing what they were hired for. Companies will have to provide specific work assignments, including dates and locations, to verify the "employer-employee" relationship between the company applying for an H-1B and its visa recipient.
H-1B visas are valid for three years and can be renewed for another three years. The USCIS says it may limit the length of the visa to shorter than three years based the information an employer provides. For example, if an employer can't prove the H-1B holder is "more likely than not" needed for the full three years, the government might issue the visa for fewer than three years. The memo also says the administration wants to prevent employee "benching." That's when firms bring on H-1B visa holders but don't give them work and don't pay them the required wages while they wait for jobs.
H-1B visas are valid for three years and can be renewed for another three years. The USCIS says it may limit the length of the visa to shorter than three years based the information an employer provides. For example, if an employer can't prove the H-1B holder is "more likely than not" needed for the full three years, the government might issue the visa for fewer than three years. The memo also says the administration wants to prevent employee "benching." That's when firms bring on H-1B visa holders but don't give them work and don't pay them the required wages while they wait for jobs.
doing something useful for once. No more useless indians taking jobs here.
The companies that do that only exist because bigger companies want them to exist. They provide a source for employees they can get rid of very quickly, should work be reduced or they simply don't work out. Basically a company can avoid layoffs by redefining some employees as contract workers, even though they work they same hours and do the same level of tasks as everyone else.
I am an American and my first job was a contract engineer. It actually paid pretty good, better than now to be fair, though with less benefits, since your benefits depend on your contracting company, not the place you actually show up to. The only thing I particularly disliked about contracting was being first on the list when the company decides to shed staff. It was actually better in some other ways. None of those performance reviews and such.
That all being said, I'm not a fan of H1Bs. I could see limiting them. It should also be the company that is using them doing the request, not an in between company. Finally, they should be of limited term. Perhaps a couple years, then you must apply for citizenship to remain, and you must complete the citizenship within say another two years to stay.
In other words, I don't want productive members of our society being denied the same rights as everyone else. Also, I'd rather have people interested in becoming citizens, than those that are not.
Of course while I'm asking for things that will never happen, I'd like to see health care and retirement unlinked from employment. There are details to work out there, but the only thing one should get from employment by default is a paycheck. We need to make it easier for workers to move jobs, since that increases worker leverage, a little bit at least.
Their legal advice was all the same: Fill out the I-9 form for everyone we hired, and make photocopies of the two pieces of official documentation presented as proof of work eligibility. The government provides no way to confirm that these documents are legit, so the I-9 and photocopies become proof that we did our due diligence, and shields us from prosecution for hiring unauthorized workers.
In other words, the way the system is currently set up, having illegal immigrants on your payroll is not proof of wrongdoing by the employer. If the employee presented what seemed to be proper work documents at the time of their hiring, the employer has done nothing wrong by hiring them. And in fact the employer can be sued if they deny employment to anyone because they suspect the documentation was forged, and it turns out to be legit. Basically the employer has no choice but to accept without proof that any provided documentation is legit.
If you really want to stop illegal immigrants* from being hired, the government simply has to set up a system where the authenticity of work documents can be confirmed by employers prior to hiring someone. Most of the people we later found to have presented forged docs were woefully easy to spot - the name didn't match the SSN, or the last known residence didn't match the SSN. Oddly, the people who are most likely to blame employers for hiring illegal immigrants are also the ones most vehemently opposed to this type of system to easily authenticate work documents.
* This is why the term "undocumented immigrant" is a misnomer - there is no way for an employer to distinguish a documented immigrant, from an undocumented immigrant who is doing everything in their power to fool you into thinking they are documented. The only definitions which work are:
Companies are addicted to cheap outsourced labor...there's no way this wasn't drafted without consulting them first. It sounds like the sponsoring companies are just going to have to jump through another hoop to show that there's still a relationship with the company. And you can bet there is...Tata, Infosys and the like use their H-1B slots to move people on-site to their customers. These people either do the work that absolutely can't be done offshore or are interfaces between what's left of the on-site team and the offshore IT farm.
Immigration law is full of all sorts of exceptions and gray areas, and I'm sure a lot of those were purchased by lobbyists. So, while it appears to be a good step in the right direction, it's not an outright ban and probably won't make much difference.
Hurrah, the Trump administration does something I support!
I would call my self a liberal who is highly sympathetic to fiscal conservatism (the later being how I was raised). My dream of a 100% Republican controlled government would be that they would run the numbers and cull less productive government programs. Sadly, Republican's have abandoned the one platform I've always respected them for, the debt. It bothers me that this is the very best our "conservative" government has been able to bring us.
American social conservatives empower these people who just shovel more and more wealth towards out affluent, all the while they bankrupt our government.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
On an issue by issue basis, polls have consistently supported positions he's also supported.
What is more, if Trump policies are cited as Obama or Hillary policies, you find that many people that reflexively oppose Trump agree with the policies. This makes clear that the opposition is not to the actual policies but rather to the R after his name and his self presentation which rubs many people the wrong way.
Again, those that find this an inconvenient observation will say it is opposition to policies that are immoral.
Policies such as what and according to what clearly undefined moral code are we supposed to be judging him?
Not supporting effectively open borders? Americans don't want that. There has been support for reducing immigration and making more strict the policies that allow existing immigration for well over 30 years.
What about so called "free trade"? Its a farce and everyone knows it is a farce. Free trade was something the US pushed during the Cold War as an inducement to join the First World. It was one of the carrots to side with the West over the Russians. It has generally acted to grant foreign companies access to US markets with few questions asked or conditions required. Now that the Cold War is over, there is no justification for it anymore. It is not infinitely sustainable even if we saw infinite political utility for it. There is obvious damage to many American industries and communities to no particular value to our society besides some geopolitical buy in.
What about government corruption? Here any faction that claims this isn't an issue of import is just lying. The last several years have been an endless embarrassing laundry list of corruption, conflicts of interest, nepotism, theft, incompetence, and dereliction of duty. This is actually starting to become an existential issue for the US government itself. If the government neither is doing the things it was created to do reliably nor has the confidence of the people to do those tasks then the role of the government in society collapses. This is how great empires die with some frequency. They hollow out... rot from within... and then one day... the shiny veneer that promised solidity and perfection collapses. Consensus exists that this should be taken seriously.
What else? Gun policy? If the anti gun people had the votes they'd just go to constitutional convention rather than whining endlessly about restrictions and living constitutions etc. We've changed our constitution as recently as the 1980s. If you have the votes, you can change it. If you don't have the votes then all you can do is bitch. That the anti gun people are bitching makes it very clear they don't have the votes.
On and on and on. The man is sitting at 50% approval right now.
http://news.gallup.com/poll/11...
Most presidents don't pull 50 percent. Naturally this is an average statistic from Gallup... we'll have to see what Trump pulls at the end of his term. But if he gets anywhere near 50 percent then he'll have gotten about as much approval from the public as the average president which is impressive considering the military grade invective thrown at the man.
Lastly we get into this issue of his immorality. Well, according to what? What are the principles of this morality? Is it written down anywhere so we can examine it? Where does it come from? I'm not saying anything he does is or isn't moral because whatever his morality is will be subjective to whatever standard we're using. It is like judging if someone broke the law without citing which legal code the person is under. So where does this moral code come from? Because it sounds increasingly like the code of "you're a bad person because you disagree with my politics". And whilst I can understand that moral code, it is clearly not one that anyone outside that moral paradigm should take seriously.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I completely disagree. When I had to look for a new job a few years back I found that most all jobs are contract jobs for which you need to compete (and suffer) with Indian H1B workers who will work for less and many times without benefits. Rates are pretty much fixed between the employer and contracting company so that you essentially lose PTO, company provided healthcare options, 401k matching, Stock benefits etc. Also consider the H1B visa holder is beholden to the company that sponsors them and must pretty much do anything they want or need. I found that the market is absolutely flooded with H1Bs and its saturated. So now that contracted positions have become the 'new normal' (just check the job boards such as Indeed etc), American technology workers are thrown into the same churn of contracting jobs along with H1Bs. Your best and only hope is to be picked up as a full time employee (as some time of the companies choosing). 'Contract to hire' means pretty much nothing as well as companies don't really need to oblige. Also the normal tactic of most companies is to hire you full time for a salary minus any costs of PTO, Health Benefits, and 401k. This is where salary negotiation essentially falls apart. Overall, this is a crusher to the American technology worker. I know one would argue the cream will rise to the top, etc etc... but its about money. There is no cream rising anywhere for these companies. The American worker is pretty much screwed with few alternatives here. The H1B visa holder at least can go back to their country and have made a good bit of money relative to their currencies and obtain higher statuses. If were were to go crazy and not cap the H1B, I believe technology work in the US would cease for Americans. You would be better off looking at any other industry which pays benefits such as PTO, Health Benefits, and 401k to its employees. And recommending a Computer Science degree to young people? Forget it!!!