Lone Crusader Wins Battle Against Anti-Citizen Discrimination by Tech Firm

Center for Immigration Studies ^ | December 10, 2020 | David North

[NobleFree]

Robert Heath, a skilled IT worker and a U.S. citizen, operating without a lawyer, has won an important battle with a Dallas-area corporation that published advertisements saying it was interested in hiring specific classes of aliens; in other words, it was discriminating against U.S. citizens, according to a Justice Department press release.

The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division on December 8 approved a settlement among Heath (the "charging party"), the Department, and Ikon Systems of Frisco, Texas, the recruiting firm in question. The key section of the settlement is this:

[The government's] investigation found that ... Ikon posted at least eight job advertisements for information technology ("IT") positions that solicited applications from non-U.S. citizens with immigration statuses associated with certain employment-based visas, and in so doing, harmed U.S. workers (U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, recent lawful permanent residents, asylees, and refugees) by unlawfully deterring or failing to consider them for hire, including the Charging Party.

U.S. nationals are natives of American Samoa and have a near-citizen status on the U.S. mainland; they are eligible for naturalization.

The Department's press release noted:

For instance, the investigation revealed that one of Ikon's advertisements stated, "Looking for OPT, CPT, H4 EAD, and H-1B transfer." The Department also determined that Ikon failed to properly consider a U.S. citizen's application to one of the job postings due to his citizenship status.

OPT and CPT stand for the Optional Practical Training and the Curricular Practical Training programs, which provide subsidized jobs for recent alien college grads and alien students, respectively. As is always the case with government press releases, and most media coverage, that these visas carry with them a nice subsidy unavailable to citizen workers is not mentioned. H-4s are dependents of H-1B workers and an EAD is an employment authorization document issued by the Department of Homeland Security to various nonimmigrant aliens.

The provisions of the settlement included Ikon's promise to stop discriminating against U.S. workers, a promise to file a series of reports over two years regarding its hiring practices, and the payment of $27,000 to the government and $15,000 to Heath. Ikon also, I assume, had to pay a law firm to handle the case. One of the signatories of the agreement was Deepak Shivva, Ikon's president.

In 2018, Ikon, according to the myvisajobs.com web site, filed for 29 H-1Bs in 2018, for 13 the following year, and for five this year. These filings, because the H-1B program is over-subscribed, presumably produced about one-third as many workers as filings. Ikon is thus a middle-sized operator.

I had hoped that Ikon would be suspended from the H-1B program for at least a couple of years, but that option, called debarment, is rarely used by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Heath, a resident of south Florida, has filed a number of these charges, and tells me that the current one is about 200 pages long. For earlier CIS postings on Heath's work, see this one by my colleague Art Arthur (in which Heath is the charging party, but not named) and this one of mine.

For the full text of the settlement, see here.

[pierrem15]

The got a $27K fine. It’s a joke. That amount is probably about what they get for 1 illegal H1B placement.

[cuban leaf]

A friend of mine, when he was a first level manager in an IT department in the late 90’s told me that one day he was looking at the row of contractor desks and looked at the $80 an hour americans and the $17.50 an hour Indians and wondered to himself why he was using the americans.

Eventually he became CIO of the company, spent a lot of time in India, and gave presentations to other large companies discussing the advantages - and disadvantages - of outsourcing to foreigners. And yes, it is not always the answer.

BTW, That was in a COBOL shop. The thing I learned from it was to get out of programming and get into something more “communication” intensive. I’ve been either a BA or Sales engineer ever since.

And during this time of Webex everywhere, that communication breakdown has become a serious problem. In one meeting recently, the indians’ accent was so poor, that we finally just started using Jabber and sharing a screen so we could see what each other was saying. That is, the communication was all typed in.

[The Antiyuppie]

The got a $27K fine. It’s a joke.

Wow, that will put the fear of God into them...

[NobleFree]

Robert Heath, a skilled IT worker and a U.S. citizen, operating without a lawyer, has won an important battle [...] Heath, a resident of south Florida, has filed a number of these charges

Robert Heath is an American hero.

[Mariner]

Hopefully Ikon pays dearly enough to scare the hell out of every IT staffing firm in the country.

[pierrem15]

I was at a company recently where several large, business-critical projects that had been outsourced were so poorly written and architected that they couldn't be fixed by the Americans (including myself).

The C-Suite response was to lay off all the Americans and outsource everything.

Plumps up the bottom line so they can cash their options in now, but in the medium term the company will be toast.

Of course, they don't care and will move on to loot another company before the downturn, with a remarkable history of management "success" behind them.

That's how American business works these days, which is why they are happy to employ Indians or transfer key tech to the Chinese.

[null and void]

“General Motors and allied highway interests acquired the local transit companies [forming National City Lines], scrapped the pollution-free electric trains, tore down the power transmission lines, ripped up the tracks, and placed GM motor buses on already congested LA streets.”

It’s a claim that’s more convincing given that the companies [Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, GM, and Mack Trucks] were convicted in 1949 of conspiring to monopolize bus and equipment sales to National City Lines. On a very basic level, a “conspiracy” was at the heart of the National City Lines business plan.

GM was fined $5,000 and GM treasurer H. C. Grossman was fined $1.

That dollar fine must have really hurt Grossman's feelings.

The government wants to disarm us after 244 yrs 'cuz they plan to do things we would shoot them for!

At no point in history has any government ever wanted its people to be defenseless for any good reason ~ nully's son

The biggest killer of mankind

Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!

To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...

[NobleFree]

Reprehensible. The C-suite has declared war on the American worker.

[pas]

I watched one of the series by Mariana Van Zeller. One of the things I knew would happen when they started off shoring things like call centers and such was the stealing of data. What they do is steal the lists with names and phone information and sell to the local gangs who perform scam calls. This is why I do not answer the phone unless it is my daughters. Everyone else leave a voice mail maybe I will get back to you.

[Red Badger]

$5000 in 1949 would be $55,133.26 today’s dollars.............

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=5000&year1=194912&year2=202011

[Rebelbase]

A $27K fine is just the cost of doing business for them.

[zeugma]

A $27K fine is just the cost of doing business for them.

A cheap cost at that. Probably a rounding error in their accounting.

[Nifster]

Hmmmm

[pierrem15]

Of course another possibility is that they are receiving kickbacks directly from the outsourcing companies.

[jroehl]

Almost all the IT recruiting companies are controlled by Indians now. If you are an American citizen, good luck getting your resume in front of a hiring manager.

[DuncanWaring]

Some of us knew that a quarter-century ago.

[jroehl]

I am in IT. I am willing to work for $17.50 and hour. But recruiters laugh at me when I mention this. This is pure racial discrimination against white males.

[bobcat62]

You can find Robert over on Facebook & Twitter. Possibly even Parler.

I’ve fed him some of the H1B-only opportunities I’ve found on Dice.

[glorgau]

Hopefully Ikon pays dearly enough to scare the hell out of every IT staffing firm in the country.

$27K fine. They'll have to cancel the remodel of the receptionist's desk.