Report finds fraud in 20% of H-1B applications

Federal investigators discovered fraud in more than 20 percent of applications they examined in which employers were requesting H-1B visas...

In a report released late last year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service cited one especially egregious case in which an employer petitioned for a business-development analyst position but later told investigators the worker would be doing laundry and maintaining washing machines.

The report's findings appear to vindicate some critics of the H-1B program, who have said the hiring of foreign professionals hurts U.S. workers. Full Story »

Posted by Dwight Rousu
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Posted by: Posted by Dwight Rousu - Feb 16, 2009 - 12:30 AM PST
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Edited by: Dwight Rousu - Feb 16, 2009 - 12:30 AM PST
Dale Penn
2.3
by Dale Penn - Feb. 16, 2009

This story is very superficial. The implications of the accusation are striking, but I would have liked to have seen some meat on the bones. Was the arrest in New Jersey related to the investigation covered by this report? Do investigators plan to expand their investigations beyond the five month window they chose for their initial sampling? Are resources available to deal with this? How many samples were chosen out of the 96,827 applications in the timeframe reviewed? Was the study statistically sound?

An interesting story likely worth following, but slim on detail.

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Dwight Rousu
4.1
by Dwight Rousu - Feb. 16, 2009

Turnbull picks up and reports on a federal study showing abuses of the H-1B visa system, a topic most corporate media is hesitant to publicize. The topic has suddenly become permissible in the current unemployment environment. The article says most the fraud was among smaller, less established employers.

My guess is that the larger established employers are better at artfully hiding the fraud. The US immigrant worker visa system is largely devoid of oversight. Irresponsibility for the programs are spread among many uncoordinated bureaus. One sure piece of evidence that the immigrant workers are not needed is the wages. If there were a shortage of trained candidates, the pay offered should rise; it hasn't. Large corporations and their payees in congress are using immigrant ... More »

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    () As joblessness soars, employers are under mounting pressure to save U.S. jobs by laying off foreign professional workers first, a scenario that for many H-1B workers triggers ...
    Posted by Dwight Rousu