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.

Comments

Employers view H1b Visas as a worker for 33% pay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Employers view H1b Visas as a worker for 33% pay.

Oh, and they like the 'loyalty' of a worker who is dependent on them to stay in the country.

Great!

[richman555]

A step in the right direction.... it has to continue until H1Bs are reduced and the American jobs and salaries increase.

Your Argument

[SuperKendall]

So just to be clear, your argument is that we should do what Obama did - nothing - and let companies not only abuse undocumented workers, but continue to abuse the H1-B system too?

Or did you just want to bitch about Trump by bringing up some unsubstantiated tabloid rumor that is about what some guy 20 levels below Trump did in the hiring for some demolition project?

As you are an Obama supporter, I can understand your position would be to bitch about everything and do absolutely nothing to curb abuses by business. I just can't understand the logic in such a position.

Re:Why bother with H-1b visas?

[Solandri]

The problem with blaming employers for hiring illegal (undocumented*) immigrants is that the U.S. government makes it impossible to actually verify if a potential hiree is in fact authorized to work in the U.S. I used to manage a company which was in an area with a known large illegal immigrant population, so I spoke with several immigration attorneys about this and how to avoid accidentally hiring someone who wasn't authorized to work in the U.S.

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:

• Illegal immigrant - someone who is in the country illegally and uses forged documents to trick an employer into hiring them.
• Undocumented immigrant - someone an employer hired without properly checking their work documentation.