US senators question TCS, Wipro over H1-B visas

ELECTION ISSUE: Nine Indian companies have been questioned by US senators about their recruitment processes.

Featured Blog

Rajdeep Sardesai

26/11: Terror comes precariously close

Featured Slideshows

The H-1B visa programme allows American companies to employ temporary foreign workers in "speciality occupations", often in the high tech industry, while the L visa programme is for intra-company transfers of managers, executives and specialists.

"We understand that many employers would like Congress to make more H-1B visas available," the two senators said in the letter to the companies. "However, we must be mindful of the impact importing more foreign workers will have on American workers, especially in light of the recent economic downturn.

"We believe that before increasing the H-1B cap, Congress must close loopholes in the H-1B and L-1 programmes that harm American workers."

For example, under current law only employers that employ H-1B visa holders as a large percentage of their US workforce are required to attempt to recruit American workers before hiring a H-1B visa holder.

"Most companies can explicitly discriminate against American workers by recruiting and hiring only H-1B visa holders," the senators suggested.

This was so, they noted, as the US Department of Labour (DOL) has said: "H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified US worker wants the job, and a US worker can be displaced from the job in favour of a foreign worker".

"Additionally, we are concerned that some companies may be circumventing the requirements of the H-1B visa programme by using other visa programmes, such as the L-1, to bring in cheaper foreign labour," the senators said.

While the L-1 visa programme allows inter-company transfers to enter the United States, experts have concluded that some companies use the L-1 visa to bypass even the minimal protections for American workers that are in the H-1B programme, they said.

Last year too, Durbin and Grassley had sent out a similar questionnaire to these companies, but the letter this time was more probing taking into account the looming recession and the spectre of job losses.

Among other things, the lawmakers wanted the companies to provide a detailed description of their recruitment process for open positions, including company policies and where they advertised, and whether priority was given to US citizens when filling open positions.

Asking if good faith efforts were made to recruit American citizens for open positions before recruiting foreign nationals, Durbin and Grassley inquired if they would support legislation prohibiting a firm from hiring additional H-1B visa holders if the same employs more than 50 people and more than 50 percent of its employees were H-1B and L-1 visa holders.

Last year the two senators had also introduced the H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, which would require H-1B applicants to make a good faith effort to hire American workers first and would give the Department of Labour greater oversight authority in investigating possible fraud and abuse.