U.S. Graduates Expect Mass Layoffs as Companies Keep Hiring H-1B Visa Workers

The rules are tighter for companies that are deemed an “H-1B Dependent” employer:

An H-1B dependent or willful violator employer is prohibited from displacing a U.S. worker in its own workforce within the period beginning 90 days before and ending 90 days after the date of filing of the visa petition.

“Get organized. Gather evidence … collect documents,” said John Miano, a lawyer at the Immigration Reform Law Institute. “Fifty people bringing a case adds a lot more weight.”

The H-1B laws provide little or no protection for Americans graduates, he said. But lawsuits can be based on patterns of executives’  discrimination against Americans in favor of people who are not citizens or not Americans, he said. The lawsuits can also be brought against companies that keep many workers on subcontractors’ payrolls. “It is tougher to prove,” he said, adding, “It ain’t what you know, it is what you can prove.”

Americans also need to lobby Congress and get media attention before they are fired, Larson said. “It is a time for action, even if it puts people at risk — putting your heads down, keeping anomalous, it’s not having an impact,” she said.

The Indian H-1B workers are lobbying Congress to preserve their work permits and jobs, so Americans must accept that politics is more important than their technical expertise, she said. “We need every American graduate to push this issue as much as possible. … They need to call, email, and tweet their senators and reps daily.”

Indians will shout “Racism!” at American employees who rally their black, white, Latino, Asian, native-born, and immigrant peers into a group to protect their economic rights and their jobs, Larson said. “Whenever anybody shouts the word ‘racism!’ everybody freezes,” she said. But the Indian groups already organize themselves to fight in Congress for jobs, she said:

Immigration Voice is the lobbying group that is heavily lobbying our Congress, including on bringing in more visa workers and the green card giveaway [S.386], has become a master of using “Racism!” as a whip to cow the American people into going with their demands.

“The Indians are a group of groups, they look out for themselves,” said Lynn, adding:

We see ample evidence of preferential treatment. They look out for people of their nation, their caste, their region, and hence we see case after case of country-of-origin discrimination and preferential hiring for their in-group.

Over the last two years, American professionals have organized to lobby against the H-1B program via the American Workers Coalition, U.S. TechWorkers, and ProUSworkers.

The new TechsUnite.US site was created to help U.S. graduates anonymously collaborate while shielded by encryption.

In turn, these groups are backed up by a few sites that track the scale and location of the outsourcing industry in each legislator’s district. The sites include SAITJ.org and H1BFacts.com. “The scope of this thing is really unbelievable,” said one researcher.

Other sites document the conflicts created by diverse foreign business practices in the United States. The non-political MyVisaJobs.com site also provides much information about H-1B outsourcing and green card rewards in multiple industries.

THIS IS WHY WE NEED BORDERS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2020

The racism claims that are routinely thrown at Americans are the reverse of the workplace reality, Larson said. “Yes, there is discrimination, but it is in favor of Indians, and it is done by U.S. executives,” because they prefer to hire and fire cheap, compliant labor from India, she said, adding:

Our hard-fought employee rights are being pushed to the curb. The message has been entirely skewed so that visa workers can come in saying “We want diversity,” “Don’t be racist,” but Americans for decades have been fighting for employee rights, rights for women, for minorities, and these are all just being stepped over.

…

[Americans] are being pushed aside — even Chinese-Americans and Asian-Americans to a great extent. Indians are just dominating [in workplaces] and all these other minorities don’t even have any representation [in workplaces] any longer. It is not diversity at all.

The conflict between American employees and visa workers exists because Congress allows companies to hire visa workers who have far fewer rights in the job market than do legal immigrants, he said. “The most important issue is … we should have immigrants and immigration, not guest-worker visas.”

“When you are in these desperate times, it is going to create even more negative, knock-on effects on the labor market,” he said.