How U.S. Corporations Illegally Sponsor Foreign Workers

How U.S. Corporations Illegally Sponsor Foreign Workers

Author: Stephen DeVoy

The article addresses a subject well known within the personnel departments of U.S. corporations but largely unknown to the public in general.  The following information is an aggregation of what I have learned from being the director of the programming department of a defense contractor as well as information I have accumulated from friends holding hiring authority within U.S. corporations.

Let me begin with my position on the issue of immigration.  Personally, I believe in open immigration.  Specifically, I believe there should be no INS and there should be no border controls.  My personal position aside, I'd like to educate readers on how U.S. corporations exploit current immigration policies in order to drive down the wages of Americans and to create a work force populated by individuals subject to easy compromise and deportation;

U.S. corporations often argue that they cannot find the skill sets they need for various positions within their corporations.  In response to this, the INS has created the concept of corporate sponsorship where non-residents can obtain work visas for positions requiring skills that Americans ostensibly do not have.  Nowhere is this call as shrill and determined than within the software development industry.  Despite the fact that the United States has too many computer scientists, software engineers and other technologists brandishing the widest range of skills in the world, these false claims of need are made.  The question is, how do they get away with it?

The answer is very simple and it implies a willful complicity in fraud by the INS which readily cooperates with corporate power to fraudulently justify the claims that no American workers can be found for a specific position.  If you take the time to read the job ads, you will often find ads with extremely esoteric skill set specifications.  Moreover, aside from the primary skills needed for the position, you will find a long list of either irrelevant or trivial skills.  This aggregation of the primary skills (the skills actually needed) and the irrelevant or trivial skills (the skills either not needed or obtainable within, lets estimate, one week of practice) is a ploy used to fraudulently justify hiring an individual that is NOT unique and can easily be found within the American workforce.  I know this because I've seen it done - many times and intentionally.

Let me describe a case in point.  While I was working as a department director for a defense contractor, an individual that had previous contact with the company suddenly found himself laid off by Lycos in Massachusetts.  This individual had no special skills that could not be found in significant numbers within the United States.  He was from New Zealand and being laid off meant he could face revocation of his visa if he could not obtain another sponsor within a short period of time.  This, of course, made him vulnerable and vulnerable individuals are willing to accept positions for less than competitive salaries.  Moreover, they are very controllable by their employers who hold not only the ability to fire them, but the ability to have them deported, thereby disrupting their lives on a scale far beyond what can be inflicted on a U.S. citizen.

At the management meeting where hiring this individual was discussed, many of these issues came up.  The president of the corporation stated that it would be easy to ensure his sponsorship, "All we need to do is to get a list of his unique skills and place job ads requiring those skills.  Since it is rare for any two individuals to share exactly the same skills, no one will respond and we can substantiate a claim for sponsorship."

I was a bit surprised by this and I wondered if it was a common practice, so I set out interviewing many people I knew who were in hiring positions within the technical and accounting fields.  Everyone I asked not only agreed that this was a common practice but added the additional information that they, themselves, do it all the time.  In fact, I was told, it has been a common practice for decades.

The INS does not question this practice.  They do not challenge the inclusion of trivial skills listed in combination nor the inclusion of irrelevant skills.  Thus, the INS is complicit in the process.

Is this good for foreign workers?  Well, there are two answers to this.  Yes, it is good in that they have a much easier time finding a technical job in the U.S. than do American workers.  On the other hand, they find themselves paid poorly and vulnerable to the whims and abuse of their employers.  At times of layoffs, it gives them an advantage.  When I was placed in the position of being involved in a layoff process whereby workers needed to be listed in terms of value to the corporation, foreign workers were given a pass and removed from the list when they appeared within the layoff zone.  The reason for this, I believe, is that they represented the most exploitable of the workforce.

It is time for Americans to aggressively challenge job ads that include aggregations of trivial or irrelevant skills.  I suggest responding to these ads with your resume including a statement challenging the necessity of prior acquisition of trivial skills and a demand to know what irrelevant skills are included.  The corporation will be forced to show these resumes to the INS when consideration of the visa is made.