NASSCOM's claim that only "small Indian companies" abuse H-1b visa is absurd

Last month U.S. Senators Durbin and Grassley wrote a letter to nine of the top Indian outsourcers regarding their use of H-1b, such as their wages, age of workers, number of U.S. citizens on staff, and their efforts to recruit Americans. To our knowledge none of the receipients have responded to the questions posed in that letter.

Instead the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) issued a statement that "there is little evidence of such fraud, or that restricting the number of H-1 B visas . . . will have any effect on visa fraud."

NASSCOM is being less than honest to the U.S. Senate - they have ignored the questions and raised the Red Herring of "fraud." The NASSCOM Executive Council is a "who's who" of Indian outsourcing firms, comprised of leaders of I-flex, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, and Mr. N Chandrasekaran, Executive Vice President of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

TCS is the number one user of combined H-1b and L-1 visas, with nearly 8000 applications in FY 2006.

We have already reported that TCS has boasted that it pays its H-1b workers 25% below market wages, and this this underpayment was its competitive advantage against American firms and U.S. workers.

While about half of TCS business is in the U.S., only about 1000 of their 90,000 employees are Americans. (Meanwhile TCS is planning to hire 5000 workers in Mexico, to assist with Perot's "giant sucking sound" of jobs.)

We also know that the thousands of TCS employees on L-1 visas can work in the U.S. for up to a year while still getting paid their foreign wage - $20,000 per year or less. These Mexicans that TCS is hiring will provide them an additional source of foreign workers that TCS can rotate into U.S. jobs and continue to pay them third-world wages, without the expense of international air fare.

Senators Durbin and Grassley have compiled a 354 page list of L-1 visa users. TCS is on top. They are asking the top users about their usage. We expect another Red Herring response from NASSCOM about "no fraud," avoiding whether they are displacing U.S. consulting firms that pay American wages by bringing in thousands of average skilled staff programmers on L-1 while paying them third world wages.

Congress: How is it not unfair competition to allow consulting firms to pay third world wages at U.S. jobs sites by rotating in workers from foreign sites? Might this be creating an incentive to NOT hire U.S. workers for U.S. jobs?

A large user of L-1 visa is Intel. During the same period that Intel in Folsom, California was laying of its American IT workers, I heard from multiple Indians on L-1 at Intel in Folsom that they and many other L-1 workers were not brought in for their skills. Instead they were new hires in India being brought to the U.S. for training, then would return to India to ramp up Intel operations there. U.S. training may be necessary since Intel blames the Bangalore division for botching the Whitefield Xeon processor project a few years ago.

Meanwhile the stress of being forced to lay off highly skilled Americans led to the suicide of a top manager at Intel Folsom in 2003. As Intel brings in foreign workers, they do not even attend career day at nearby CSU Sacramento.

While under the “spirit of the law” TCS is a bodyshop, and thus all of its employees “provide labor for hire for unaffiliated employers," it appears that under the letter of the law TCS can continue to second-source L-1 workers by a) assuring that the L-1 reports to a TCS employee, and b) assuring that the TCS employee is providing a service related to a contract that TCS holds with the client:

L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2004, signed into law December 8, 2004

SEC. 412. NONIMMIGRANT L-1 VISA CATEGORY.(a) IN GENERAL- Section 214(c)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1184(c)(2)) is amended by adding at the end the following:

(F) An alien who will serve in a capacity involving specialized knowledge with respect to an employer for purposes of section 101(a)(15)(L) and will be stationed primarily at the worksite of an employer other than the petitioning employer or its affiliate, subsidiary, or parent shall not be eligible for classification under section 101(a)(15)(L) if—

(i) the alien will be controlled and supervised principally by such unaffiliated employer; or

(ii) the placement of the alien at the worksite of the unaffiliated employer is essentially an arrangement to provide labor for hire for the unaffiliated employer, rather than a placement in connection with the provision of a product or service for which specialized knowledge specific to the petitioning employer is necessary.

See INA § 214(c)(2)(F), 8 U.S.C. § 1184(c)(2)(F), as added by Pub. L. No. 108-649, Sec 412(a).