H-1B: End It, Don’t Mend It
Its harmful effects are a feature, not a bug
https://cis.org/Miano/H1B-End-It-Dont-Mend-It
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Previously, I cut through the gaslighting on H-1B visas and walked through the statutes to show the how H-1B program is designed to replace Americans with cheap foreign labor. It is explicitly legal to replace Americans with H-1B workers and the faux prevailing-wage system is designed to allow employers to pay those foreign workers ridiculously low wages.
Skip the spin, go through the statutes, and you find that H-1B is nearly perfect in its designed goal of replacing Americans. The only flaw standing between H-1B and perfection in that goal is the annual quotas. By allowing “dual intent” (where applicants for the visa can intend both to return home and to remain in the U.S.), H-1B predictably became a try-to-buy program where green cards became a publicly provided fringe benefit for employers to induce aliens to accept jobs that bind them to the employer for an extended period of time.
The claims that H-1B are for skills, shortage, global talent or anything like that are gaslighting with no basis in reality. Except for fashion models, there is no skill requirement for H-1B. A mail-order degree from a foreign diploma mill is all it takes to qualify for H-1B. Indeed, an industry of selling diplomas to qualify for visas has developed. Consistent with its lack of data collection in order to hide the state of H-1B, USCIS does not keep track of where H-1B workers got their diplomas. When a diploma mill comes to light, USCIS has no way to identify whether its fraudulent documentation was used to get H-1B visas. The existence of Congress’s requirement that visas be awarded in order of petitions filed refutes any claim that skill was a goal of H-1B. The labor market tests that existed prior to 1991 were removed in H-1B, destroying any claim that H-1B was actually designed to address shortages.
H-1B is and always was about cheap labor.
Many misconceptions about H-1B put forth on line: “If we just did (fill in the blank – say, raise the minimum salary from $60,000, require recruitment, or some other simple change) it would solve all the problems.” Even the $60,000 minimum salary is a myth.
The fundamental structure of H-1B precludes any simple solution to cleaning it up. For example, the H-1B program separates the labor parts from the actual visa petition. The first step in the H-1B process is for the employer to file a Labor Condition Application (LCA) with the Department of Labor. In the LCA the employer “certifies” a job, the prevailing wage, the wage to be paid, that there is no strike or lockout, whether the employee has a master’s degree, and (for certain employers) whether they recruited Americans in good faith. Yet there is no link between the LCA and any actual foreign worker. In fact, the Department of Labor is required to allow the employer to specify multiple workers on the LCA.
There is no way to check the validity of what is submitted on an LCA because, at the time the LCA is approved, it is processed in a vacuum. Employers certify the employee has a master’s degree when there is no employee. In fact, many LCAs are never used to get an actual H-1B visa. Furthermore, the Department of Labor is required to rubber-stamp LCAs that are properly filled out within seven days.
When the employer files a visa petition, it includes the LCA. This is the first time there is a link between a specific worker and a specific job. This would be the time to check whether the terms of the LCA had been fulfilled. If USCIS finds a violation it should be able to report that back to the Department of Labor for investigation. But the lobbyists who wrote the law are a step ahead of good government: the law expressly prohibits the Department of Labor from investigating based upon such information. There are no simple fixes here that will transform H-1B into some kind of rational program.
Another myth that circulates about H-1B is that it veered away from its original intent to attract top talent to work in the U.S.
No, H-1B was designed to be malicious from the start. The LCA system segregated from the visa petition demonstrates that that authors knew they were designing a system to allow employers to abuse it with impunity. Those involved in its creation who say otherwise fall into one of two categories: the prevaricators, who knew what they were doing, and the inept, who got rolled and now try to revise history to cover their blundering.
Reforming H-1B is a futile exercise. Trying to transform a program whose very purpose is to replace Americans with foreign workers (and is nearly ideal for that purpose) into something else is like attaching wings to a rowboat so it can fly across the Atlantic. You can’t “fix” what isn’t broken. Further complicating the problem, what would that “something else” be?
H-1B needs to be ended.
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Another myth that circulates about H-1B is that it veered away from its original intent to attract top talent to work in the U.S.
No, H-1B was designed to be malicious from the start. The LCA system segregated from the visa petition demonstrates that that authors knew they were designing a system to allow employers to abuse it with impunity. (If that can be documented wouldn't it be enough to kill the program>)
Those involved in it's creation who say otherwise fall into one of two categories:
1. the prevaricators, who knew what they were doing,
and 2.The inept, who got rolled and now try to revise history to cover their blundering.
Reforming H-1B is a futile exercise. Trying to transform a program whose very purpose is to replace Americans with foreign workers (and is nearly ideal for that purpose) into something else is like attaching wings to a rowboat so it can fly across the Atlantic. You can't “fix” what isn't broken. Further complicating the problem, what would that “something else” be?
H-1B needs to be ended.
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Gotta wonder how hard it would be to end the program? Would it be better to install real honest people working in the program who want it righted? Would that wind up denying many requests by employers? Couldn't the basis be that there are plenty of potential employees right here in the U.S.? Just wondering.
US Sanctions Hysa Family Casinos in Mexico Tied to the Sinaloa Cartel & Albanian Mafia for Money Laundering
Translated excerpt:
.....US Sanctions Hysa Group
On Thursday, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it was freezing the U.S. assets of 27 individuals and businesses in Mexico, Canada and Poland.
The U.S. sanctions target the Hysa Organized Crime Group. In a statement, OFAC said the group “is believed to operate with the consent of the Sinaloa Cartel, which maintains criminal control over much of the territory where the group conducts its activities.”
The Hysa family is of Albanian origin and is headed by Luftar Hysa. Other family members involved with him in his businesses and also implicated in the accusations include Arben Hysa, Ramiz Hysa, Fatos Hysa, and Fabjon Hysa.
The Hysa Organized Crime Group (HOCG) has used its influence through its investments in, or control over, various Mexico-based businesses, including gambling establishments and restaurants, to launder the proceeds of narcotics trafficking.
The OFAC also accused some of the suspects, which it identified as Albanian nationals, of smuggling of bulk cash to the United States, using gambling establishments and upscale restaurants in Mexico allegedly for “laundering illicit funds belonging to suspected narcotraffickers.”
Mexico-based Entretenimiento Palmero, S.A. de C.V., owned by Arben, is central to the HOCG’s operations. Mexican national Gilberto Lopez Lopez acts as its commissioner. Albanian national but Mexico-based Eselda Baku (formerly Eselda Hysa), Ramiz’s daughter, sits on its Board of Directors.
Palmero, S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
Bliri S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
Cucina Del Porto S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
Diversiones Los Mochis S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
El Arte de Cocinas y Beber S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
Entretenimiento Villahermosa S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
Entretenimiento Y Espectaculos B.C. S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
Grupo Internacional Canhysamex S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
H Hidrocarburos S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
Hysa Forwarders S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
LH Pro-Gaming S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
LH Rental S.A. De C.V. (Mexico)
Operadora Alejil S.A. De C.V. (Mexico)
Operadora de Empresas LH S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
Procesadora de Alimentos Hs S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
Rosetta Gaming S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
Hysa Holdings Inc (Canada)
Rosetta Gaming Inc (Canada)
Rosetta Gaming SP ZOO (Poland)
Luftar Hysa, based between Mexico and Canada, is often seen in public media as a leading member of the Hysa family, providing public interviews on his family’s businesses in Mexico and Europe. Luftar, Fatos, Arben, and Fabjon have worked closely with a U.S. person to launder money, including the movement of bulk cash from Mexico to the United States, where the U.S. person’s company was used to launder the funds.
Luftar and Arben have utilized a Europe-based entity to enrich themselves from laundering illicit funds belonging to suspected narcotraffickers. Luftar also owns or directs several companies used by the HOCG.
Arben owns or directs several companies used by the HOCG in Mexico. Arben has also been involved in the smuggling of bulk cash to the United States for the purposes of money laundering, as well as the use of gambling establishments and luxury restaurants in Mexico to launder drug money.
Ramiz has been involved in the use of gambling establishments and luxury restaurants in Mexico as fronts for laundering the proceeds of the sale of narcotics.
Fatos, alongside Luftar, Arben, and Fabjon, was involved in smuggling bulk cash into the United States for the purpose of laundering money. Fatos and Fabjon were also involved in the use of a Europe-based entity to enrich themselves from laundering illicit funds belonging to suspected narcotraffickers.
.....In Mexico, two of the casinos ordered to suspend operations belong to a company owned by television and retail magnate Ricardo Salinas Pliego, who has repeatedly clashed with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Grupo Salinas on Wednesday denied any wrongdoing and referred to the investigation against its two establishments as harassment.
.....Billionaire businessman Ricardo Salinas, one of Mexico’s richest people, posted a US $25 million bond in the United States to avoid arrest over a debt some of his companies owe to the telecommunications company AT&T.
.....The dispute between Salinas and AT&T stems from AT&T’s purchase of Salinas’ Mexican telecom business in 2014. In 2020, AT&T sued Salinas, “alleging it was owed money over unpaid taxes dating back to previous ownership,” according to Bloomberg.
A corporate intelligence firm hired by a Mexican billionaire’s team secretly recorded an opposition lawyer over a drink-fueled dinner in a bid to get evidence to help it win a London lawsuit without needing a trial.
The tactic backfired after the judge said while Ricardo Salinas Pliego’s stock-lending fraud allegations against Astor Asset Management appeared strong, the evidence was gathered unethically and a trial is needed.
Salinas, a TV, retail and banking magnate, is one of the current administration’s most outspoken critics.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum accused the 69-year-old businessman of committing fraud in the sale of his telecommunications company to AT&T. She asserted that he sold the company (for US $2.5 billion) “without informing all the conditions of the sale.”
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