Monday, August 24, 2015

H-1B Scam

Battle of the Billionaires: Trump vs Zuckerberg on Immigration
Now that the The Donald has revealed his plan for ‘Immigration Reform that Will Make America Great Again‘ he is taking on tech billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on the issue of H-1B visas.

Currently tech companies, like Zuckerberg’s are making a killing by hiring immigrants with H-1B visas and STEM degrees (science, technology, engineering and math) to work for a fraction of what American workers receive. These are good jobs that qualified American workers are actually being passed over for. And it’s all perfectly legal.
Zuckerberg and those like him want more H-1B visas to be issued so they can give jobs to cheap foreign laborers without ever having to leave the United States.
Marco Rubio agrees and plans to triple the number of H-1B visas. Donald Trump wants the free ride for billionaires like Zuckerberg to stop.

According to CNN Money,
Trump said he wants to require employers to pay H-1B workers much more money, which he said would discourage companies from hiring them and boost job prospects for Americans. He also wants to have tech jobs offered to unemployed Americans before they can be filled by workers with H-1B visas.
“This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities,” Trump wrote in his immigration plan. Rubio is also seeking the Republican nomination for president.

Trump says that there are plenty of graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, known as STEM, to fill tech jobs. That means that employers don’t need H-1B visas to fill jobs, and are using them instead to keep wages low.

Employers are supposed to pay a typical wage to anyone hired under a H-1B visa. But in reality, employees on these visas are typically paid 20 to 45% less than U.S. workers who they are are often replacing, said Ron Hira, a Howard University public policy professor who has studied the visa’s pay scale.
“I don’t think you should eliminate the H1-B program. The problem is it’s being abused and it’s a source of very cheap labor,” said Hira.

The Census Bureau confirms that 74% of people who hold a STEM bachelor’s degree have a job outside of those fields.

You can watch Fox News Political Insiders discuss Trump’s immigration plan:
 
In its annual report on H-1B visas, released in 2006 November, USCIS stated that it approved 130,497 H-1B visa applications in FY2004 (while 138,965 new visas were issued through consular offices) and 116,927 in FY2005 (while 124,099 new visas were issued via consular offices).[24][25][26][27][28][28][29][30]
In FY2008, a total of 276,252 visa applications (109,335 initial, 166,917 renewals and extensions) were approved, and 130,183 new initial visas were issued through consular offices.
In FY2009, 214,271 visas were approved, with 86,300 being for initial employment, and 127,971 being for continued employment)[31] and 110,988 initial H-1B visas were issued from consular offices.[32]
In FY2010, 192,990 new visas were approved, with 76,627 being for initial employment and 116,363 being for continuing employment. 117,828 new visas were issued through consular offices[33]
In FY2011, 269,653 new visas were approved, with 106,445 being for initial employment and 163,208 being for continued employment. 129,552 new visas were issued through consular offices.[33]
In FY2012, 262,569 new visas were approved with 136,890 being for initial employment and 125,679 being for continued employment.[26][27][28][29][30][33][33][33][34][35]
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services "H-1B Benefit Fraud & Compliance Assessment" of September 2008 concluded 21% of H-1B visas granted originate from fraudulent applications or applications with technical violations.[96] Fraud was defined as a willful misrepresentation, falsification, or omission of a material fact. Technical violations, errors, omissions, and failures to comply that are not within the fraud definition were included in the 21% rate. Subsequently, USCIS has made procedural changes to reduce the number of fraud and technical violations on H-1B applications.
In 2009, federal authorities busted a nationwide H-1B visa scam.[97]
Fraud has included acquisition of a fake university degree for the prospective H-B1 worker, coaching the worker on lying to consul officials, hiring a worker for which there is no U.S. job, charging the worker money to be hired, benching the worker with no pay, and taking a cut of the worker's U.S. salary. The workers, although they have little choice in the matter, are also engaged in fraud, and may be charged, fined, and deported.[98]

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