H-1B: The Scourge of American College Grads

Contact Your Elected Officials

Federal Agency Oversight:ย DOL,ย DOS,ย DHS
Dependents:ย H4

The Basics:
  • The employer-sponsored H-1B visa is reserved for โ€œspecialty occupations,โ€ which generally require theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge and a bachelor’s or higher degree in a directly related specific specialty.
    • The status of the H-1B alien is dependent on the employment relationship.
    • Most people associate H-1B visas with the tech industry, especially computer programming, but H-1B visas are also issued to fashion models, doctors, lawyers, architects, professors, marketing professionals, and many others.
    • USCIS maintains anย H-1B Employer Data Hubย that provides information about the employers that petition for H-1B visas and the wages they offer to these workers.
  • The H-1B visa classification has an annual numerical cap of 65,000 new visas each fiscal year.
    • An additional 20,000 visas are available for aliens who earn a masterโ€™s degree or higher from a U.S. institution of higher education.ย 
    • H-1B workers employed at an institution of higher education or its affiliated or related nonprofit entities, a nonprofit research organization, or a government research organization, are exempt from the cap.
  • H-1B visas require the petitioning (sponsoring) employers to pay the higher of either the prevailing wage for the specialty occupation or the actual wage the employer pays other employees in that position.ย 
  • The government receives far more H-1B petitions for capped categories than the number of available visas, so US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) randomly selects petitions from the applicant pool in a lottery system, with no regard to wages offered, relative prestige or experience of the respective alien workers, or the importance of the profession or industry to U.S. national or economic interests.
    • In response toย widespread fraudย in the H-1B lottery system, the Biden Administrationย alteredย how the lottery is managed to bar multiple employers from petitioning for the same employee in order to boost their odds of selection.ย 
The Problem:
  • There is no labor shortage in tech (or anywhere). There is only a shortage of cheap labor.
    • Eric Weinstein on H-1Bย (emphasis added): โ€œ…[E]mployers in government, universities, and industry, have recently lobbied (1975-1976, 1986-1990) for the purpose of avoiding and depressing the natural market price for U.S. knowledge workers. By creating a nearly identical panic to the one today, this group of employers motivated changes in immigration law and obtained government training funds to create an artificial demand for technical skills.โ€
    • According to theย Center for Immigration Studies, almost 12 million workers with STEM degrees in the United States are not working in STEM jobs. Moreover, wages for STEM workers have been relatively flat for two decades. โ€œIf the demand for STEM workers exceeds the supply, then we should see U.S. firms offering increasingly generous compensation to recruit and retain these allegedly scarce workers. We do not.โ€
  • While wage protections are written into H-1B, the program also allows third-party staffing agencies to petition for H-1B workers. These third-party โ€˜body shopsโ€™ do not have a bona fide job offer for aliens and instead essentially rent them out to other companies as hired labor. Between jobs, they โ€œbenchโ€ the H-1B visa workers for months with no pay.
    • The Economic Policy Institute has foundย widespread wage theftย by major employers who hire H-1B workers from staffing agencies.ย 
  • H-1B employees are often low-level frontline workers. They are used toย replaceย more experienced and more expensive American workers, and many Americans are forced to train their H-1B replacements as a condition of severance pay and other benefits.ย 
  • U.S. employers haveย repeatedlyย beenย bustedย discriminating against American workers in favor of hiring H-1B indentured servants.ย 

LEGISLATIVE RECOMMENDATION: Institute a wage floor for all H-1B visa workers of at least $165,000 per year; ban third-party employment of H-1B workers (to eliminate the โ€œbody shopsโ€); replace the lottery system with a system that distributes visas based on the wage level offered so that visas go to employers offering the highest wages; prohibit adjustment of status from H-1B visa status to lawful permanent resident (green card) status so that H-1B visa holders have to return to their home countries when their visas expire. Alternatively, simply eliminate the H-1B visa and incentivize employers to hire American workers.

ADMINISTRATIVE RECOMMENDATION:ย Restore and expand the Trumpย H-1Bย regulationsย from his first term, including reforming the H-1B lottery to allocate visas based on the highest wage offered, barring eligibility for third-party employers, and strictly narrowing what counts as a specialty occupation and a foreign degree equivalent for alien workers.

H-1B Visa: The Scourge of American College Grads PDF

Read Original Article on ISProject.org

The Thinking Conservative
The Thinking Conservativehttps://www.thethinkingconservative.com/
The goal of THE THINKING CONSERVATIVE is to help us educate ourselves on conservative topics of importance to our freedom and our pursuit of happiness. We do this by sharing conservative opinions on all kinds of subjects, from all types of people, and all kinds of media, in a way that will challenge our perceptions and help us to make educated choices.

Deranged Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett Lacks Decorum

Texas Democrat House Representative Jasmine Crockett went too far in recent speaking engagement and she should be forced to resign from Congress.

The Usual Suspectsโ€™ Knives Out MAHA Following Federal mRNA Contract Cuts

Earlier this week, the RFK Jr.-led FDA announced the...

Corrupted Medical Societies Push SSRIs For Pregnant Women in Defiance of FDA

A recent expert panel organized by the FDA cast doubt on the safety of SSRIs โ€” even though these drugs are largely considered safe by healthcare providers.

The โ€œTrump Bridgeโ€ Could Lead To Russiaโ€™s Expulsion From The South Caucasus

If agreed to, and the report remains unconfirmed for now, the โ€œTrump Bridgeโ€ could lead to Russiaโ€™s expulsion from the South Caucasus.

Sweeney Swoon

Sydney Sweeney donned American Eagle jeans and hawked them as part the "Sydney's got great jeans" campaign, and the Left acted like she'd committed an atrocity.

Texas AG Files Suit With State Supreme Court to Declare Seats of 13 Absent Democrats Vacant

Texas AG Paxton filed lawsuit with state Supreme Court asking court to declare the House seats of 13 Texas Democrats vacant due to โ€œunlawful absences.โ€

Trump Admin Wants $1 Billion Settlement With UCLA

Trump upped ante in negotiations with UCLA, eyeing a 10-digit settlement with school following a DOJ investigation into campus anti-Semitism.

ICE Arrests More Violent Criminals, Faces 1,000 Percent Spike in Assaults

ICE recently arrested several criminal illegal immigrants who have been convicted of drug trafficking, sex crimes, and violent assaults, DHS said.

DOJ Moves to Unseal Exhibits From Epstein, Maxwell Grand Jury Investigations

The DOJ asked a federal court to unseal grand jury exhibits from the investigations into sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

US Treasury Sanctions Members of Mexican Cartel โ€˜Los Zetas,โ€™ Including Rapper El Makabelico

Treasury Dept imposed sanctions against high-ranking members and an associate of the Mexican Cartel del Noreste, (Los Zetas) based in Mexico.

Trump Removes IRS Commissioner Billy Long

President Trump is replacing Billy Long as commissioner of the IRS less than two months after his confirmation, a WH official confirmed.

Trump-Brokered Armeniaโ€“Azerbaijan Peace Deal Secures US Trade Route

Trump will host leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House to sign a joint declaration ending four decades of hostility between the two nations.

Trump-Brokered Armeniaโ€“Azerbaijan Peace Deal Secures US Trade Route

Trump to host leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House to sign joint declaration ending 4 decades of hostility between the two nations.
spot_img

Related Articles