Here are a few recent examples of American companies quietly replacing their American staff using foreign born workers hired under the H-1B, L-1, H4EAD and OPT visa programs.
It is safe to say that before too long this levy is going to break.
We have to ask ourselves – How did we allow this to happen?
HOW WE GOT HERE…..
Long before any specific client projects or assignments are actually awarded, large outsourcing companies (“IT consultancies”), like Infosys, Tata, Cognizant and Wipro, apply for and obtain a disproportionate share (upwards of 90%) of the H-1B “temporary guest worker” visas issued every year by the U.S. government. Once the visas are granted, these companies use them to bring into the United States tens of thousands of medium-to-low skilled foreign guest worker “employees” from India, China, and other parts of the world. However, these outsourcing companies are not employers in the true sense, but agencies that contract out their H-1B visa holders to clients like JP Morgan Chase, Verizon, Wells Fargo, Disney and McDonald’s. Evidence shows that, in most cases, the American companies will then ask their expert American employees to train the H-1B workers, who, ultimately, become the American workers’ foreign replacements. That is how the grand plan of substituting American labor with cheaper foreign workers is rolled out.
Within a few years of working in the U.S., the “temporary” H-1B workers will submit an immigrant application, the first step to becoming a U.S. green card holder. And before you know it, tens of thousands of “temporary” H-1B workers are well on their way to becoming permanent residents of the United States. Once their green cards are in hand, the newly minted permanent residents are only too happy to perpetuate this cycle by bringing in more of their own country men and women. Notice how these corporations and their foreign workers are systematically draining American citizens of their jobs, their incomes, and their intellectual capital. This profitable (for the outsourcer) but disastrous (for the American worker) business model, that has been left unchecked for many decades, has dealt a large blow to the American middle class. Large numbers of hard-working American citizens who enjoyed a comfortable middle class existence have seen their lives abruptly turned upside down, and more recently, a large swath of American graduates, who took on a pile of debt to receive a STEM education/degree, are now left without any prospects for a decent career.
So far, the United States Congress has turned a blind eye to this problem, and it will continue to do so until people realize that the once benign temporary guest worker visa program they helped create has morphed into a multi-headed monster that is actually harming them and their kids. Then the pitch forks are sure to come out.
What do you know, and what do think should be done?
Tell us.