US Worker Visa lacks oversight
By Asha

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit, research organization. CIS describes its single mission as ‘providing immigration policymakers, the academic community, news media, and citizens with reliable information about the social, economic, environmental, security, and fiscal consequences of legal and illegal immigration into the USA.’

The Center is governed by a diverse board of directors that has included active and retired university professors, civil rights leaders, and former government officials. CIS research and analysis has been funded by contributions and grants from dozens of private foundations, from the U.S. Census Bureau and Justice Department, and from hundreds of generous individual donors.

While it is common knowledge the both the Clinton and Bush Administrations turned a blind eye to the misuse of the H1B Working Visas,  Obama has taken relatively stronger action against the mainly tech companies which misuse the H1B Visas which were set up to hire on a short term basis highly skilled workers not available in America.

A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies finds high likelihood of missed violations of the rules in major guestworker visa programs and the various employment based permanent immigrant programs. In addition, the report collects in one place for the first time the information available on employers whose participation in the programs was suspended, at least temporarily, by the federal government due to misconduct.

The report, “Taking Names: List of Firms Barred from Foreign Worker Programs Likely Just Scratches the Surface,” is authored by David North, a Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and former Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Labor.

Among the improbably low rates of abuse of these programs, based on the proportion of participating employers that were debarred from participation, are these:

-Only 1 out of 983 employers using the H-1B program;
-Only 1 out of 1,278 employers using the H-2A program;
-Only 1 out of 500 employers using the H-2B program; and
-Though the exact number of employers participating in employment-based permanent resident programs is unknown, the report estimates only 1 out of 2,500 employers was debarred.

The list of penalized employers included in the report is organized by the state the employers were located in at the time they were debarred. Additionally, the list includes information on the employer name and location, the program the employer was participating in, and information on penalty they received.  Needless to add to this is the fact that Indian origin tech and HR firms based in USA as well as India based companies feature prominently into the list of firms barred from US Foreign Worker Programs.