Feds Consider H-1B Changes After Uncovering Fraud 254
CWmike writes "A Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman said today that the agency is weighing a series of reforms to the H-1B application process, including the use of 'independent open-source data' to obtain information about visa seekers or the companies that file the petitions on their behalf. The move follows a report by the agency that found widespread problems and evidence of fraud in the nation's H-1B program, including forged documents, fake degrees and shell companies being used in H-1B applications. It also comes after the controversy caused by changes to the H-1B rules earlier this year."
Re:There's a surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
However, when it comes to real specialists I don't see how low entry barriers will affect wages, because those people will move to wherever they earn the most. If you look at wages for IT-specialists* in Europe for example they are not much lower in Poland than in the UK, even though the general population earns much less in Poland. The reason for this is that if the employers would offer less those IT workers would just move on to Germany, France, UK etc..
*Not talking about the guy who runs the Exchange server or fixes your printer problems.
h1b and L1 (Score:5, Interesting)
L1 is the loop hole. It is the top secret one. I agree that there are about 30% h1bs who fake their experience(h1b criteria is 16yr edu + 3 years minimum work exp or 15 yr edu + 6 years work, 1 year education = 3 year work). 90% people on L1 have 15 year education or less and just 1 year exp. In any economy downturn h1bs are the first to be fired because 90% of them work on corp to corp contracts which are very expensive. Example for a unix admin - 100+ per hour is paid by company A to vendor V, V keeps 35% and gives 65 to H1B holding company H, H pays about 30 to the employee who is new in USA or 40 if he is more than 2 years old in usa. H1b end up getting exploited till GC(6 to 8 years). L1s too get exploited but they are happy because they are rotated every year. So they have less expenses(no need to buy car or family home) in usa and carry all money as savings to india/china.
Since h1b corp to corp is expensive, candidate has to be really skilled, but some do manage by changing clients(A) every 3 to 6 months by slipping through a phone interview(some one else giving the phone int in their name). On being found out they are fired in 3 to 6 months. Yet they manage to settle in low tech areas like managing remedy tickets etc in about 2 years of hire-fire cycle. So in downturn, h1bs are fired first, then the citizen employee and are replaced by L1. L1's don't get overtime pay. They get about 3 to 4 k per month and yet that is a very good money because in india they get max 1k per month for 1+ year experience.
Re:There's a surprise (Score:2, Interesting)
Some karma burning time for me.
In US it is easy to fire underperformers, but not in Canada.
With personal experience I can say that the kind of money we wasted^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hspent in hope to bring some morons in Canada to a level of a programmer, we could have easily built another Cisco, with the help of Indian programmers. I do that now, having learnt my lessons, and I am happy I did that. It is much easier to pick good skilled among those 1 billion people and bring them to our standards than risking my projects.
My 2 cents.
Re:Lower wages (Score:3, Interesting)
If this is true, why don't the CEO's set the trend by taking less?
Because CEOs are important. No board of directors wants to skimp on the CEO offerings, let they get a "cheap" one that runs their company in the ground.
But, there have to be some limits. While paying $dirt means you won't get a good CEO (even for large values of $dirt), paying $bucks doesn't guarantee you a good one, either. The idea is to pay CEOs for their performance, just like any other employee.
Problem is, how do you measure a CEOs performance? If a company has a great year, was it just because of a good economy? Would that year have been just as great if the CEO did nothing? How about if the company has a bad year? Is it the CEO's fault if oil prices quadruple and the financial markets tank? Do you just measure "attendance" and say "thanks for showing up - here's a check?"
Boards are getting better at this. CEO turnover is high, and the anti-"golden parachute" clause in the bailout bill has encouraged a lot of boards to axe those clauses. Even if they aren't subject to conditions of that bailout, they want to be seen as proactive so as to avoid more government intervention.
look at history (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lower wages (Score:4, Interesting)
"But, if you pay dirt, you will get a bad CEO. "
Who says so? I'm not saying pay them dirt (which is what the janitor gets) just pay them reasonably. 100 million does not guarantee that you will get a good CEO. Conversely, paying 1 million may get you a good one because you might get one that looks at things differently. Often the amount paid for someone (or something) is not related to the price you pay.
Re:There's a surprise (Score:3, Interesting)
The fault is entirely with the expectation that house prices will continuously rise, or that they should be traded like company shares. "
Nothing wrong with wanting extra room, etc. BUT...it has to be tempered with realistic expectations of income, and a realistic view of what ones means truly are, and to live within them!!
People over the past few years have gotten to assume they are entitled to a certain lifestyle, with all the latest gadgets and cars. They try to get a house way too large...hell, I've seen instances where people had a large house, and 2-3 nice cars...and bascially only had enough money to furnish the place with plastic lawn furniture. And, if someone is going to chose to raise a family? You'd better be prepared to cut down on what you expect your lifestyle to be....unless you are wealthy, raising children...even one is $$$, and will require sacrifice on your part. Sacrifice of time, money and personal growth if need be.
I hate to see all this crashing around us...but, perhaps people will learn the hard way not to live on credit, running up debts they'll never get out of, and living beyond their means.
And with housing...well, I'm guessing we'll go back to how it was before. Loans will only be given to people with proper credit history, who have worked and saved to be able to put down 20% on a home and be prepared for the extra costs of maintaining one. This will force people to live in a home they can afford.
Once upon a time...people used to save money for cars too....
Hey, I know everyone wants nice things, but, people need to learn like how in the old days, that you aren't entitled to all the shiny cool things out there...
Housing costs will come down to a more reasonable price, fiscally responsible people will save and purchase what's out on the market, and they will be a good credit risk.
Maybe lenders and customers will become more fiscally sensible.
Re:There's a surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
While that argument might hold water for someone building rental units, it is meaningless for building condos with the intent to sell, not rent. The financial crisis wasn't trigger by people failing to pay their rent, it's about an artificially high barrier to property ownership.
A word on the "evils" of rent control:
I'm renting a non-luxury non-rent controlled or stabilized apt right now. My last apt wasn't luxury or rent stabilized either, and my rent went up 48% in three years because my neighborhood gentrified. So I had to move (and pay a broker for the privilege). Rent control isn't the huge loss that landlord try to hack it up to be, if the building is turning a profit when they build it, it will be turning a profit ten years down the line even if the apts are rent controlled, because the landlord's mortgage didn't go up and the rent control with keep property taxes down, what the landlords are whining about is that they can't maximize their profits (and boot out long time tenets) with every neighborhood gentrification wave, there is a big difference between making a modest profit and taking a loss, and no landlords are actually taking a loss on buildings with rent controlled apts. Added to that,rent stabilization doesn't apply to anything built since '84. [tenant.net]
Re:Right, ain't NO SHORTAGE (Score:2, Interesting)
And widespread thinking like the parent post is why America's losing the high ground globally. You'd be throwing out the baby with the bathwater, unless you're prepared to start offering naturalization or a fast-tracked green card from the get-go as an alternative. Not that either of those options would ever be similarly abused, of course...
I am currently on an H-1B, hired for a scientific research & facility operations position requiring a lot of particularly specialized skills (I have a Ph.D. & came into the job with more than 5 years' postdoctoral experience). I beat out a bunch of US nationals fair & square (I know, because I met several of the shortlisted ones during the interview process). My employers deemed me to be the best-suited applicant in a standard interview process, so I got the job, paid at the same going rate as any US citizen. In practice, hiring me probably actually cost the employer MORE than a US citizen, due to the need to pay the extra fast-tracking fees for the H-1B visa & so on.
So, while I've no doubt that there are some companies & individuals abusing the system, I take issue with the ill-founded assumption that just because I'm on an H-1B, I was hired as "cheap labor".
Re:H1-B fraud? Tell me it ain't do! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd love to see one of those congress critters look the camera in the face and try to explain how someone who has to pay 60-100K for a degree is supposed to compete with someone who pays 25K or less.
The solution isn't limiting H-1, but reducing tuition fees.
Tuition rates in public universities are too high. And most university funding doesn't even come from it.
Re:There's a surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
While it may make debts easier to pay, it ultimately makes the money worthless. Inflation by printing more money to pay off obligations is what the Weimar Republic did, and we all know how well *that* worked out. With Obama looking like he can win the Presidency, the fringe lunatic end of the Republican Party is showing its vile, racist hatred (*). I only hope we in the U.S. don't wind up having to go to the grocery store with our money in wheelbarrows and simply having it weighed to determine if it is enough to pay, along with outlawing the possession of Euros and other stable currencies.
(*) Yes, I realize plenty of Republicans are not racists, but there is a lunatic fringe of Republicans who are both racist and violent. If they think they have nothing to lose, who knows what could happen.
Re:H1-B fraud? Tell me it ain't do! (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I work (intermittently) in a university, and tuition fees recently went up to £3000 per year ($5,150). On top of that, students have to pay around £25 ($43) for course notes (they aren't expected to buy textbooks, and all of the recommended course texts are in the library). When I was a student, tuition cost £1025, and a few years before that it was free - putting it up to £3000 caused a lot of complaints and it's unlikely to go up any more because of concerns that it's excluding poorer people from university (and it's relatively easy to get grants to cover a lot of this if your parents aren't able to afford it. I only paid around £200 per year in tuition fees). My living costs as a student, including rent, were around £300-400 per month, say £3000 per year academic year - low enough that working over the summer months can fund the rest of the time. Even with the tuition fees on top of this, I'd expect the total cost of a degree to be around £18,000 ($30,000), including living expenses and tuition.
Do you get a better degree from a US university? I guess that's what you'd argue, but is it four times better? I started my PhD immediately after doing my first degree, and I was rarely impressed by papers delivered by US PhD students (although I often was by papers from professors at US universities).
The Feds FINALLY figured out what we already knew (Score:3, Interesting)
I knew these problems existed as early as 1993 - 1995. The consulting company I worked for brought lots of H1-B's from India (becuse they could pay them 1/3 - 1/2 what they paid us) and 90% of them didn't know a darn thing. They all had forged resumes, had lied about degrees, etc... They would get to a cleint site and sit and stare at a screen they aks thousands of questions on how to do the job they wre hired for.
What they also won't tell you is most - not all - but most people in india have TWO birthday's. Their REAL one and the one they put on all documents (the lie birthday). They use this so they can try to get into school earlier and use it for other ways to "sneak ahead". I know for a fact this goes on from having worked with many people from India. One gal slipped one day and mentioned about her "real" birthday and when I caught her on it I made her explain why she had TWO birthdays. That is how I found out about it.
Granted I have worked with a few that really did know their head from their @$$. But precentage wise I would say only 1 in 1000 really know their head from their @$$.