Comment by xvxvx
8 hours ago
I’m quite shocked that this was even open to abuse to begin with. Clearly, the US has very strict immigration and green card laws. So enforcement has been lax? Or were deals made under the table with these companies and previous administrations?
Visa programs have been widely abused for decades. This just addresses the PERM portion for a few companies. The abuses of the OPT, CPT programs are insidious and have resulted in a job market that completely disincentives the hiring of new grad Americans. It's not uncommon to find job postings that are "H1B only". Companies won't even consider citizens. H1B, H4 EAD have become a way for ethnic nepotism and kickback programs to operate without consequences and get American companies to fire Americans in favor of foreign workers. This is just the smallest step in the right direction.
Hmm? Green card fraud is pretty easy and very common. You put out an ad for the job role. Then you sort the fake resumes to the top and fail them in the interview.
Boom, perm green card. Every big company does it.
I don't think you meant to write 'green card' there? At least, what you've written makes absolutely no sense as a description of how a green card might fraudulently be obtained.
PERM is an employment based green card that requires a labor market test. In my own experience, I’ve been part of fake job postings and interviews.
Effectively you put the persons role up as a job ad, then fail a few people in the interview and that’s all it takes for PERM.
They weren’t real interviews. The job postings wasn’t real. I interviewed people so someone on the team already could get a PERM.
An individual immigrant violating US immigration law is dealt with very strictly.
A money-making interest violating US immigration law is a completely different matter, because capital loves nothing more than cheap labor and is willing to subject labor to the ordeal of being the individual immigrant dealing with US immigration law, so long as they don't cost as much as Americans.
It's been abused for decades, if you're of the mindset that hiring H1B workers for cheaper is an abuse of the system instead of the intended result.
H1B != green card
It's part of the same system. The system is a largely fraudulent one throughout. Doesn't matter if you're applying for an initial H1B or a PERM.
This system is ostensibly there so that we can draw that skilled 10X engineer or brilliant researcher in India, UK, Romania, Australia, whatever, to America - to boost our companies and get his/her productivity into our GDP instead of some other country's companies and GDP. If used that way, I am all for it. Most of us have met many non-citizens who are very obviously a net benefit to our country due to their talent and ambition.
But this system is used in practice to depress all of our wages, to knock out rungs on the career ladder for new graduates, and to create a semi-indentured workforce more tolerant of low pay and poor working conditions, by bringing over completely average developers of the variety that you could just as easily get by putting up a table at your local college's career day.
I don't blame the workers who accept this offer, as being paid on the low end of our scale here is obviously an upgrade or they wouldn't take it. But it's a betrayal of our domestic workers. A financial hit for some of us, and for those earlier in their career, a major blocker to them getting jobs in the first place.