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Judge sends two to prison for 7 years for H-1B fraud

computerworld.com

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Re: Judge sends two to prison for 7 years for H-1B fraud

#31

Post by parennoob »

qxf2 wrote: post #6

I rarely comment but this story makes me happy enough to do so. I'm a former H1-B with an American Masters degree in STEM. I think this conviction will go a long way in making the system fairer. Here is what happened. H1-Bs must be legally employed all (well most of) the time they are in the USA. To get past that rule, these H1-B shops act as employers and then farm out the employees to other companies. Employers nee…

> Hopefully, that will improve the perception around genuine H1-B VISA holders.

This. As a fairly paid H1B (I have discussed salary openly with my American coworkers), I always cringe when stories like the Disney one come up, because I feel like the next day a couple of them are going to be saying, "Ugh, there's the H1B that's taking our jobs away".

For this reason, I hope all the fraudulent H1B companies are pushed out of business with strict penalties. Also I really wish there were some sane laws around H1B (sorting priority by salary relative to prevailing wage, untying employers from the visa, etc.)

Re: Judge sends two to prison for 7 years for H-1B fraud

#32

Post by moon_of_moon »

If they made the H1-B system fairer for the immigrant workers, so that they their employability wasn't tied to a sponsorship, it would actually be better for American workers.

How?

Because H1-B employees cannot transfer out easily and live in fear of losing their jobs, because it means packing up and going home. (I can only imagine how much managerial abuse and in the worst case, sexual harassment this situation can lead to.) Employers love this arrangement, because it allows lower wages (the H1B worker isnt going to fight for a higher salary because he knows its dangerous to walk without another sponsor lined up.) and this pseudo indentured servitude arrangement makes for dependable employees.

Now if they took that away those restrictions, salaries would increase and employers would have no incentive to hire an immigrant over a local worker.

Re: Judge sends two to prison for 7 years for H-1B fraud

#33

Post by vostok »

chrisper wrote: post #11
qxf2 wrote: post #6

I rarely comment but this story makes me happy enough to do so. I'm a former H1-B with an American Masters degree in STEM. I think this conviction will go a long way in making the system fairer. Here is what happened. H1-Bs must be legally employed all (well most of) the time they are in the USA. To get past that rule, these H1-B shops act as employers and then farm out the employees to other companies. Employers nee…

Also many of these consultancy firms just flood the H1B application pool and then just take whoever got accepted. Very unfair.

This is why I strongly believe that H1Bs should be given out to employees that are offered the highest salary.

Clearly there is no shortage if you are not willing to pay one of the highest salaries.

Yea, this wouldn't be perfect, but it's much better than the significantly more gameable lottery system we have now.

Re: Judge sends two to prison for 7 years for H-1B fraud

#34

Post by DrScump »

bogomipz wrote: post #30
verst wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that companies should not be able to hire the most qualified individuals who went through the same system as everybody else? [EDIT (rephrasing): There is no particular training provided. The international students received the same education as US students at US institutions.] International students generally have to pay for everything out of pocket (they are not eligible for any public/tax-payer b…

Are you seriously saying that foreign students subsidize the education of US citizens? That is one of the most absurd statements I've ever read on HN. US student's educations are paid for by student loans, they fund their own tuitions I can assure you. Attending university in the US is a privilege and that does not mean you should be guaranteed a job in the United States upon graduation. You seem to have a real sense…

It may be a reference to the fact that many public colleges have tuition breaks for residents.

The other side of that coin is availability. That practice gives those schools a financial incentive to grant full-retail foreign students admission priority over residents. That's certainly the case in California.

Re: Judge sends two to prison for 7 years for H-1B fraud

#35

Post by hkmurakami »

vostok wrote: post #33
chrisper wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also many of these consultancy firms just flood the H1B application pool and then just take whoever got accepted. Very unfair.

This is why I strongly believe that H1Bs should be given out to employees that are offered the highest salary. Clearly there is no shortage if you are not willing to pay one of the highest salaries. Yea, this wouldn't be perfect, but it's much better than the significantly more gameable lottery system we have now.

In addition, I hope that we can somehow figure out a way to give visas to STEM graduate degree earners over ones employed by such shops. That segment seems significantly underserved by the current system and it's resulting in a reverse brain drain away from the country even though we are investing in their education.

Re: Judge sends two to prison for 7 years for H-1B fraud

#37

Post by ardit33 »

throwaway_45 wrote: post #36

I hate Indians who try to hate on other people trying to make it. Why the heck do you deserve to be in America? These are the rules you learn to play it.

Not Indian, but I have had too many awesome co-workers, while offered full salary and great benefits, not being able to get the H-1B, because scummy shops like these take a huge chunk of them.

I'd rather have a great engineer, employed by a good company, with a good salary, pays taxes, etc... then a desperate not so good engineer, that gets half of the salary, and pays half the taxes, while scummy employer skims off some of his pay.

Re: Judge sends two to prison for 7 years for H-1B fraud

#38

Post by siculars »

qxf2 wrote: post #6

I rarely comment but this story makes me happy enough to do so. I'm a former H1-B with an American Masters degree in STEM. I think this conviction will go a long way in making the system fairer. Here is what happened. H1-Bs must be legally employed all (well most of) the time they are in the USA. To get past that rule, these H1-B shops act as employers and then farm out the employees to other companies. Employers nee…

Every STEM grad from a US program should get a greencard/visa stapled to their diploma.

Why isn't that happening?

Re: Judge sends two to prison for 7 years for H-1B fraud

#39

Post by vthallam »

sliverstorm wrote: post #25
steego wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A much better solution would to remove any barriers an H1B worker has to shop for a better job. If we want to live an egalitarian society, it's in our collective interest for immigrants to earn as much as the rest of us. That only happens when we dismantle systems that provide an incentive to exploit immigrants.

That's no longer an H1-B, that's a totally different program with different goals.

Guess what the user meant is to make it easy for people on H1B to switch jobs which currently isn't. This makes so many employees to be at the jobs though low paying so as to keep their status in US.

Edit: for grammar!

Re: Judge sends two to prison for 7 years for H-1B fraud

#40

Post by MrTonyD »

revelation wrote: post #22
MrTonyD wrote: post #10

I had a friend at HP - who worked in a group arranging for "tourists" to staff HP projects. It was a "secret" group offsite from HQ and they got lists of major development projects. Then they worked with recruiters worldwide to find staff. They would arrange cars at the airport, long term hotels, and rotated teams in and out of the country to keep the project going. They did this for years and years. We need some rea…

Sounds like the Tesla case: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/16/elon-musk...

That does sound similar. One difference I notice - my friend's boss met routinely with executive staff and senior managers at HP to go over future projects. They all made an effort to keep their entire organization secret - even renting offices to do the development off-site in the Bay Area. I have no doubt that HP's use of tourist visas for staffing was well known to all their executives. I do know that HP was working on a lot of secret defense department programs at the time - I wonder how many of those secret military programs were actually implemented by foreign nationals hidden away at HP?
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