10 ms·

Two Silicon Valley executives charged with H-1B visa fraud

78 points by lxm 5y ago

olliej 5y ago
I was an H-1B worker and this shit annoys me - the prevailing wage check should require that the h-1b wage be above the prevailing wage - say 5% - so that any industry that starts to accrue a large number of H-1Bs starts making H-1Bs more expensive.
jldugger 5y ago
Employers have way too much power over H-1B visa holders. I don't know what the exact policy change should be, but something needs to make changing employers easier and faster. The entire "hire cheap labor from overseas" profit making/exploitation plan only works as long that labor can't walk across the street for a raise.
- marcholagao 5y ago
  > exploitation plan only works as long that labor can't walk That's not true. If H1-Bs were not a good deal for the guest workers, there wouldn't be a 10 year waiting list to get one. Living standards are so much higher in the United States due to massive infrastructure investments than in the countries most of these guest workers come from that accepting a lower wage than an American would otherwise earn is still a once in a lifetime opportunity for them. The workers being exploited by wage depression here are the American ones, and that's not even addressing the infrastructure costs of a growing population which is distributed evenly instead of being born solely by those incurring the cost. > Companies also have to do prevailing wage checks, which often results in pay increases. How? In my experience H1Bs always make less because they are taking a hit in pay in order to benefit from the public services they wouldn't get in their home country.
  - MathMonkeyMan 5y ago
    Exploitation is exploitation even if it affords better opportunities than taking a pass. That said, I don't know any of the subtle points of the visa system.
  - ec109685 5y ago
    Companies also have to do prevailing wage checks, which often results in pay increases.
    - geraldwhen 5y ago
      Supply lowers price. H1bs lower the pay of software developers in the USA, full stop.
  - jmpman 5y ago
    There’s too much money being left on the table. The government should be levying a hefty tax on every H1B, like $20k/year. That tax should then be used to fund merit based scholarships for US Citizens pursing a degree in the field of the H1B. If the argument is that we don’t have the skills in the US, then let’s use the H1B program to create those skills.
  - amf12 5y ago
    > That's not true. If H1-Bs were not a good deal for the guest workers, there wouldn't be a 10 year waiting list to get one How about this: If below minimum wage illegal work wasn't a good deal for guest workers, there wouldn't be illegal immigration to the US. This doesn't mean its not exploitation, although not every H1B is being exploited. > The workers being exploited by wage depression here are the American ones 85K new H1B's a year aren't enough to depress wages when the population of the US is 300M+. Especially when there is record demand across industries. Look at tech, every company wants to hire more and is competing with high salaries. > and that's not even addressing the infrastructure costs of a growing population which is distributed evenly instead of being born solely by those incurring the cost. I don't understand this point. Isn't every citizen benefiting from the improved, expanded infrastructure? Legal immigrants like H1Bs pay the same taxes as any citizen or a permanent resident.
    - paulgb 5y ago
      > Legal immigrants like H1Bs pay the same taxes as any citizen or a permanent resident. Moreover, primary H-1B holders are basically by definition selected to be the subset of the population that poses a negative burden on society. They have a steady job (if they lose it they get deported); they have health and criminal background checks; they are college-educated. Some other country took the burden of educating them and took on the risk that they’d turn out to be a deadbeat, and the US receives them as a taxpaying adult. (Full disclosure, I was an H-1B holder.)
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - pyuser583 5y ago
        I wasn’t aware an H1-B holder was subject to deportation as soon as they lost their job. I thought losing your job created a weird legal grey area, where you were allowed to stay in the country and look for work, but couldn’t reenter if you left.
        samspenc 5y ago
  - yes_really 5y ago
    > That's not true. If H1-Bs were not a good deal for the guest workers, there wouldn't be a 10 year waiting list to get one. Are you confusing H1-B with the Green Card queue? I'm not aware of any queue for H1-B - just the annual lottery.
  - nunez 5y ago
    Precisely. Getting into a job that accepts H1-B's seemed like big business in India when I was there. Saw ads for it and everything. Not surprising; even a low-end H1-B wage is many multiples over what you'd get for the same job in India, and the living conditions are way better.
- bsder 5y ago
  The simple solution is that an H1-B visa automatically converts to a green card in 12 months. The sponsoring corporation is responsible for completing any necessary checks within that time period. This takes care of wage suppression as people can leave after a year. This takes care of body shops clogging the pipelines as they have to spend their own money to finish the checks. This takes care of the limited number of visas as the pipeline empties every 12 months without fail. This solves almost all the H1-B idiocy. This is, of course, why no one in the valley ever proposes this solution.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The simple solution is that an H1-B visa automatically converts to a green card in 12 months. The simple solution is “just abolish the H-1B”. If you want more employment-based immigrant visas, just increase the number of visas issued in the employment-based categories, and eliminate the domestic-wage-suppressing-guest-worker-visa-with-bureaucratic-overhead-to-pretend-its-not-for-suppressing-domestic-wages.
    - ta988 5y ago
      There are different categories of H-1B including for academics, you can't just abolish things like that. It is also a good way for people with unique skills (usually not in software) to wait for their green card availability.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > There are different categories of H-1B including for academics, you can't just abolish things like. Yes, you can. Someone might want to make the case that preserving H-1B for just academics in the case of general elimination is a good idea, but it's not the simple solution. > It is also a good way for people with unique skills (usually not in software) to wait for their green card availability. If you increase the number of, and properly allocate, visas in employment-based immigrant categories, you don't need a dual-intent non-immigrant visa category for people to “wait out” in. (You could further fix the waiting-out problem by eliminating per-country limits, and applying only the global limits in visa categories; it's the per-country limits that create the really absurd wait times.) Simple: if you want to accommodate more employment-based immigrants, increase employment-based immigrant visas rather than keeping an employment-based, mobility-limiting non-immigrant visa category around, but make it a possible immigration funnel because it allows dual intent.
- ksajadi 5y ago
  Once you have an H1B you’re exempt from the lottery draw which is the biggest deterrent for hiring in the first place. This makes switching employers very easy and therefore reduces the “employer lock-in”
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > "hire cheap labor from overseas" Many years ago we had to relocate engineers from Switzerland, France and Canada in the US after an acquisition. Most of them on H1s or O1s and it sure wasn't cheaper than US devs here in the valley. > only works as long that labor can't walk across the street for a raise. They absolutely can. It's a trivial filing for an immigration attorney.
  - SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
    Employer: Can we legally hire you? Applicant: You absolutely can! Employer: Great! Applicant: It's a trivial filing. Employer: Ugh, okay. Applicant: For an immigration attorney. Employer: click
- rhuru 5y ago
  Correct but then the anti immigration lobby hates the hires and not the employers so all the regulation to protect the worker invariably is aimed at harassing the worker. As soon as trump admin started my harassment I ahd to join faang to protect myself.
huy-nguyen 5y ago
This sounds like just another run-of-the-mill H1B staffing firm fraud to me.
zackees 5y ago
Google, Facebook and the big tech companies are running H1-B visa pipeline and some small time staffing firm is the one that gets busted?
- amf12 5y ago
  > Google, Facebook and the big tech companies are running H1-B visa pipeline Because they aren't doing anything illegal. Those companies hire for a real role, and pay an H1-B worker the same as a citizen.
- gimme_treefiddy 5y ago
  Care to share some data. Even anecdata maybe?
  - yold__ 5y ago
    https://h1bdata.info/ https://h1bdata.info/
- olliej 5y ago
  Because the small time staffing firm was the organization that was breaking the law. All the big tech companies are: * Employing the people to do actual work for the host company. E.g. A Google H-1B is doing work on google products, for google. * Paying competitive salaries - you're not going to find anyone saying the FAANGs aren't paying top dollar This "small time staffing firm" was paying below fair wage, and providing fraudulent documentation about the work they were doing. If you're super concerned about the "H1-B visa pipeline" you shouldn't be looking at big tech. You should be looking at the "consulting" firms like Deloitte
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
staunch 5y ago
The whole program was sold under false pretenses and has been abused hundreds of thousands of times by virtually every large company in the US. It was sold as a program to import foreign labor in specialized roles that couldn't be filled by US workers. In reality, it's a cost-cutting measure designed to suppress US wages in order to increase corporate profits. The program was bought and paid for by US corporations for their direct benefit. Why would Apple, with all their money, need to hire H-1B generalist Software Engineers and Project Managers when they can out-compete literally any other company on earth? https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-sponsors/apple-inc-6g06vq412q/lca/2022 https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-sponsors/apple-inc-6g06vq412q/lca/... The cover story these tech executives and investors use is that they like the H-1B out of a pure love for immigrants and the melting pot it creates. The reality is that they love the competitive advantage it gives them in hiring. They don't sincerely care if it's in America's best interest or in the interest of the countries being brain-drained. Some of them will admit this in private. (Disclaimer: I have nothing but respect, understanding, and zero judgement for employees working in the US on H-1B visas. I have a dozen good friends on H-1Bs. They're in no way to blame for these abuses. They're just doing what's in the best interest of themselves and their families.)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- petilon 5y ago
  > In reality, it's a cost-cutting measure designed to suppress US wages There may be some firms who are abusing the system. The example of Disney comes to mind... they hired H-1B workers, then laid off US citizen employees, then had the laid off employees train their cheaper replacements. But just because some people are abusing the system doesn't mean the system is inherently bad. The reason the US is a technology superpower is not merely because of the programmers who were born in the US, but also because of the programmers who immigrated to the US. Adjusted for inflation, wages for top talent has gone up about 20% in the last 30 years. In 1990, if you got a job in a top company such as Sun Microsystems you got paid about $45K (average then was $40K). If you adjust for inflation that would be around $98K. But today's fresh graduates make about $115 to $120K if you get into a company like Microsoft, and Microsoft isn't even one of the top employers in terms of pay. Facebook and Google pay much more.
vsskanth 5y ago
This is typical for staffing firms. File a bunch of applications, find work for whoever gets through the lottery and file an amended petition with the actual end client. Didn't know that was actually illegal. It's good they're cracking down on this. These firms crowd out legitimate companies trying to hire someone.
- danamit 5y ago
  How is that different from Qatar's so called slave work? I have friends who worked in the middle east and others who are working in France (in farms), and the living conditions are similar, probably worse in France, why when the West does it it is okay?
  - sofixa 5y ago
    How are the living conditions worse in France? Do they also take the labourers' passports and force them to work long days with no bathroom, water and food breaks? That'd be highly illegal here. It should be reported to the police if that's the case. At the very least it doesn't get to 50C out there, so there's that.
    - danamit 5y ago
      They work farm work, with little to no job security, the bosses are most insulting etc... I haven't heard about Qatar taking passports in actuality from what I gathered from friends, but you are NOT ALLOWED to work for whoever, and if you do you pay a fine to the one who "imported" you. In France it is similar, except that you just get deported if you leave to work elsewhere, also you are forced to work only 6 months then get back, that's why a lot of such workers feel inclined to marry older French women, so they get some job security. It doesn't get so hot in France, but it does get so cold. To be fair to France they get paid a livable wage, like livable in the host country, but in the flip side such workers pay +10k to get such contracts. Also to be fair to the French, North Africans are complacent in such a business, and often than not the company that act like a middle man and hire the workers to the French farmers are often owned by North Africans. You gonna argue not all foreign workers, which apply to the Gulf too. Same goes for Thai berry pickers in Sweden, they go through shit, but it didn't happen to catch in the news and redditors did not type the same comment about workers every time they saw a Sweden news story so no one cares.
neonate 5y ago
https://archive.ph/QJqD2 https://archive.ph/QJqD2
dchichkov 5y ago
I've encountered H1-B fraud once, in an unscrupulous YC startup once, regretfully. After getting their way to YC, the founders hired two fresh H1s from India, with no internal advertisement [that's not legal]. That resulted in a significant change in negotiating power with early employees. The company went from 33% Indian into 100% Indian in 3 months. Tried reporting this as an ethics violation to YC, no one cared. Didn't bother to report to INS, that would have caused problems to the hires and they were not the ones responsible for lies and fraud.
- danamit 5y ago
  I am curious, what kind of qualifications the foreign hires had? and what kind of salaries they got? I always get sponsored visa job offers from Europe but never from US so I am wondering what's the difference.
- belltaco 5y ago
  > with no internal advertisement [that's not legal] Source?
  - Ao7bei3s 5y ago
    https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/62m-h1b-notice https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/62m-h1b-notice
- joeman1000 5y ago
  People are in a choke-hold with this. You can be tarred as a ‘racist’ for pointing out such illegal and opportunistic practices.
- huy-nguyen 5y ago
  You should have filed form WH-4 [1] with the Wage and Hour division of the Department of Labor to report the violation. That could have stopped the employer from exploiting other foreign workers. [1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/forms/wh4 https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/forms/wh4
- rhuru 5y ago
black_13 5y ago
mcdermott 5y ago
End the H1B program. Create a program to train Americans or provide free tuition to fill tech jobs.

78 points by lxm 5y ago

I was an H-1B worker and this shit annoys me - the prevailing wage check should require that the h-1b wage be above the prevailing wage - say 5% - so that any industry that starts to accrue a large number of H-1Bs starts making H-1Bs more expensive.

jldugger 5y ago

Employers have way too much power over H-1B visa holders. I don't know what the exact policy change should be, but something needs to make changing employers easier and faster. The entire "hire cheap labor from overseas" profit making/exploitation plan only works as long that labor can't walk across the street for a raise.

marcholagao 5y ago
> exploitation plan only works as long that labor can't walk That's not true. If H1-Bs were not a good deal for the guest workers, there wouldn't be a 10 year waiting list to get one. Living standards are so much higher in the United States due to massive infrastructure investments than in the countries most of these guest workers come from that accepting a lower wage than an American would otherwise earn is still a once in a lifetime opportunity for them. The workers being exploited by wage depression here are the American ones, and that's not even addressing the infrastructure costs of a growing population which is distributed evenly instead of being born solely by those incurring the cost. > Companies also have to do prevailing wage checks, which often results in pay increases. How? In my experience H1Bs always make less because they are taking a hit in pay in order to benefit from the public services they wouldn't get in their home country.
- MathMonkeyMan 5y ago
  Exploitation is exploitation even if it affords better opportunities than taking a pass. That said, I don't know any of the subtle points of the visa system.
- ec109685 5y ago
  Companies also have to do prevailing wage checks, which often results in pay increases.
  - geraldwhen 5y ago
    Supply lowers price. H1bs lower the pay of software developers in the USA, full stop.
- jmpman 5y ago
  There’s too much money being left on the table. The government should be levying a hefty tax on every H1B, like $20k/year. That tax should then be used to fund merit based scholarships for US Citizens pursing a degree in the field of the H1B. If the argument is that we don’t have the skills in the US, then let’s use the H1B program to create those skills.
- amf12 5y ago
  > That's not true. If H1-Bs were not a good deal for the guest workers, there wouldn't be a 10 year waiting list to get one How about this: If below minimum wage illegal work wasn't a good deal for guest workers, there wouldn't be illegal immigration to the US. This doesn't mean its not exploitation, although not every H1B is being exploited. > The workers being exploited by wage depression here are the American ones 85K new H1B's a year aren't enough to depress wages when the population of the US is 300M+. Especially when there is record demand across industries. Look at tech, every company wants to hire more and is competing with high salaries. > and that's not even addressing the infrastructure costs of a growing population which is distributed evenly instead of being born solely by those incurring the cost. I don't understand this point. Isn't every citizen benefiting from the improved, expanded infrastructure? Legal immigrants like H1Bs pay the same taxes as any citizen or a permanent resident.
  - paulgb 5y ago
    > Legal immigrants like H1Bs pay the same taxes as any citizen or a permanent resident. Moreover, primary H-1B holders are basically by definition selected to be the subset of the population that poses a negative burden on society. They have a steady job (if they lose it they get deported); they have health and criminal background checks; they are college-educated. Some other country took the burden of educating them and took on the risk that they’d turn out to be a deadbeat, and the US receives them as a taxpaying adult. (Full disclosure, I was an H-1B holder.)
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - pyuser583 5y ago
      I wasn’t aware an H1-B holder was subject to deportation as soon as they lost their job. I thought losing your job created a weird legal grey area, where you were allowed to stay in the country and look for work, but couldn’t reenter if you left.
      - samspenc 5y ago
- yes_really 5y ago
  > That's not true. If H1-Bs were not a good deal for the guest workers, there wouldn't be a 10 year waiting list to get one. Are you confusing H1-B with the Green Card queue? I'm not aware of any queue for H1-B - just the annual lottery.
- nunez 5y ago
  Precisely. Getting into a job that accepts H1-B's seemed like big business in India when I was there. Saw ads for it and everything. Not surprising; even a low-end H1-B wage is many multiples over what you'd get for the same job in India, and the living conditions are way better.
bsder 5y ago
The simple solution is that an H1-B visa automatically converts to a green card in 12 months. The sponsoring corporation is responsible for completing any necessary checks within that time period. This takes care of wage suppression as people can leave after a year. This takes care of body shops clogging the pipelines as they have to spend their own money to finish the checks. This takes care of the limited number of visas as the pipeline empties every 12 months without fail. This solves almost all the H1-B idiocy. This is, of course, why no one in the valley ever proposes this solution.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The simple solution is that an H1-B visa automatically converts to a green card in 12 months. The simple solution is “just abolish the H-1B”. If you want more employment-based immigrant visas, just increase the number of visas issued in the employment-based categories, and eliminate the domestic-wage-suppressing-guest-worker-visa-with-bureaucratic-overhead-to-pretend-its-not-for-suppressing-domestic-wages.
  - ta988 5y ago
    There are different categories of H-1B including for academics, you can't just abolish things like that. It is also a good way for people with unique skills (usually not in software) to wait for their green card availability.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > There are different categories of H-1B including for academics, you can't just abolish things like. Yes, you can. Someone might want to make the case that preserving H-1B for just academics in the case of general elimination is a good idea, but it's not the simple solution. > It is also a good way for people with unique skills (usually not in software) to wait for their green card availability. If you increase the number of, and properly allocate, visas in employment-based immigrant categories, you don't need a dual-intent non-immigrant visa category for people to “wait out” in. (You could further fix the waiting-out problem by eliminating per-country limits, and applying only the global limits in visa categories; it's the per-country limits that create the really absurd wait times.) Simple: if you want to accommodate more employment-based immigrants, increase employment-based immigrant visas rather than keeping an employment-based, mobility-limiting non-immigrant visa category around, but make it a possible immigration funnel because it allows dual intent.
ksajadi 5y ago
Once you have an H1B you’re exempt from the lottery draw which is the biggest deterrent for hiring in the first place. This makes switching employers very easy and therefore reduces the “employer lock-in”
908B64B197 5y ago
> "hire cheap labor from overseas" Many years ago we had to relocate engineers from Switzerland, France and Canada in the US after an acquisition. Most of them on H1s or O1s and it sure wasn't cheaper than US devs here in the valley. > only works as long that labor can't walk across the street for a raise. They absolutely can. It's a trivial filing for an immigration attorney.
- SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
  Employer: Can we legally hire you? Applicant: You absolutely can! Employer: Great! Applicant: It's a trivial filing. Employer: Ugh, okay. Applicant: For an immigration attorney. Employer: click
rhuru 5y ago
Correct but then the anti immigration lobby hates the hires and not the employers so all the regulation to protect the worker invariably is aimed at harassing the worker. As soon as trump admin started my harassment I ahd to join faang to protect myself.

huy-nguyen 5y ago

This sounds like just another run-of-the-mill H1B staffing firm fraud to me.

zackees 5y ago

Google, Facebook and the big tech companies are running H1-B visa pipeline and some small time staffing firm is the one that gets busted?

amf12 5y ago
> Google, Facebook and the big tech companies are running H1-B visa pipeline Because they aren't doing anything illegal. Those companies hire for a real role, and pay an H1-B worker the same as a citizen.
gimme_treefiddy 5y ago
Care to share some data. Even anecdata maybe?
- yold__ 5y ago
  https://h1bdata.info/ https://h1bdata.info/
olliej 5y ago
Because the small time staffing firm was the organization that was breaking the law. All the big tech companies are: * Employing the people to do actual work for the host company. E.g. A Google H-1B is doing work on google products, for google. * Paying competitive salaries - you're not going to find anyone saying the FAANGs aren't paying top dollar This "small time staffing firm" was paying below fair wage, and providing fraudulent documentation about the work they were doing. If you're super concerned about the "H1-B visa pipeline" you shouldn't be looking at big tech. You should be looking at the "consulting" firms like Deloitte

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

staunch 5y ago

The whole program was sold under false pretenses and has been abused hundreds of thousands of times by virtually every large company in the US. It was sold as a program to import foreign labor in specialized roles that couldn't be filled by US workers. In reality, it's a cost-cutting measure designed to suppress US wages in order to increase corporate profits. The program was bought and paid for by US corporations for their direct benefit. Why would Apple, with all their money, need to hire H-1B generalist Software Engineers and Project Managers when they can out-compete literally any other company on earth? https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-sponsors/apple-inc-6g06vq412q/lca/2022 https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-sponsors/apple-inc-6g06vq412q/lca/... The cover story these tech executives and investors use is that they like the H-1B out of a pure love for immigrants and the melting pot it creates. The reality is that they love the competitive advantage it gives them in hiring. They don't sincerely care if it's in America's best interest or in the interest of the countries being brain-drained. Some of them will admit this in private. (Disclaimer: I have nothing but respect, understanding, and zero judgement for employees working in the US on H-1B visas. I have a dozen good friends on H-1Bs. They're in no way to blame for these abuses. They're just doing what's in the best interest of themselves and their families.)

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
petilon 5y ago
> In reality, it's a cost-cutting measure designed to suppress US wages There may be some firms who are abusing the system. The example of Disney comes to mind... they hired H-1B workers, then laid off US citizen employees, then had the laid off employees train their cheaper replacements. But just because some people are abusing the system doesn't mean the system is inherently bad. The reason the US is a technology superpower is not merely because of the programmers who were born in the US, but also because of the programmers who immigrated to the US. Adjusted for inflation, wages for top talent has gone up about 20% in the last 30 years. In 1990, if you got a job in a top company such as Sun Microsystems you got paid about $45K (average then was $40K). If you adjust for inflation that would be around $98K. But today's fresh graduates make about $115 to $120K if you get into a company like Microsoft, and Microsoft isn't even one of the top employers in terms of pay. Facebook and Google pay much more.

vsskanth 5y ago

This is typical for staffing firms. File a bunch of applications, find work for whoever gets through the lottery and file an amended petition with the actual end client. Didn't know that was actually illegal. It's good they're cracking down on this. These firms crowd out legitimate companies trying to hire someone.

danamit 5y ago
How is that different from Qatar's so called slave work? I have friends who worked in the middle east and others who are working in France (in farms), and the living conditions are similar, probably worse in France, why when the West does it it is okay?
- sofixa 5y ago
  How are the living conditions worse in France? Do they also take the labourers' passports and force them to work long days with no bathroom, water and food breaks? That'd be highly illegal here. It should be reported to the police if that's the case. At the very least it doesn't get to 50C out there, so there's that.
  - danamit 5y ago
    They work farm work, with little to no job security, the bosses are most insulting etc... I haven't heard about Qatar taking passports in actuality from what I gathered from friends, but you are NOT ALLOWED to work for whoever, and if you do you pay a fine to the one who "imported" you. In France it is similar, except that you just get deported if you leave to work elsewhere, also you are forced to work only 6 months then get back, that's why a lot of such workers feel inclined to marry older French women, so they get some job security. It doesn't get so hot in France, but it does get so cold. To be fair to France they get paid a livable wage, like livable in the host country, but in the flip side such workers pay +10k to get such contracts. Also to be fair to the French, North Africans are complacent in such a business, and often than not the company that act like a middle man and hire the workers to the French farmers are often owned by North Africans. You gonna argue not all foreign workers, which apply to the Gulf too. Same goes for Thai berry pickers in Sweden, they go through shit, but it didn't happen to catch in the news and redditors did not type the same comment about workers every time they saw a Sweden news story so no one cares.

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.ph/QJqD2 https://archive.ph/QJqD2

dchichkov 5y ago

I've encountered H1-B fraud once, in an unscrupulous YC startup once, regretfully. After getting their way to YC, the founders hired two fresh H1s from India, with no internal advertisement [that's not legal]. That resulted in a significant change in negotiating power with early employees. The company went from 33% Indian into 100% Indian in 3 months. Tried reporting this as an ethics violation to YC, no one cared. Didn't bother to report to INS, that would have caused problems to the hires and they were not the ones responsible for lies and fraud.

danamit 5y ago
I am curious, what kind of qualifications the foreign hires had? and what kind of salaries they got? I always get sponsored visa job offers from Europe but never from US so I am wondering what's the difference.
belltaco 5y ago
> with no internal advertisement [that's not legal] Source?
- Ao7bei3s 5y ago
  https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/62m-h1b-notice https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/62m-h1b-notice
joeman1000 5y ago
People are in a choke-hold with this. You can be tarred as a ‘racist’ for pointing out such illegal and opportunistic practices.
huy-nguyen 5y ago
You should have filed form WH-4 [1] with the Wage and Hour division of the Department of Labor to report the violation. That could have stopped the employer from exploiting other foreign workers. [1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/forms/wh4 https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/forms/wh4
rhuru 5y ago

black_13 5y ago

mcdermott 5y ago

End the H1B program. Create a program to train Americans or provide free tuition to fill tech jobs.