A bipartisan legislation to reform H-1B and l-1 visas, introduced in the US Senate on Tuesday, targets once again Indian and other “foreign outsourcing companies” in a renewed push to protect American jobs and end the reported exploitation of both US and foreign workers.
It’s a renewed effort by two senior Senators — Republican Chuck Grassley and Democrat Dick Durbin — who first introduced a similar Bill back in 2007 but could not see it through on that occasion. It comes in the wake of the recent controversy over Disney World’s replacement of 250-odd American workers by H-1B visa holders, mostly from India.
“For years, foreign outsourcing companies have used loopholes in the laws to displace qualified American workers and facilitate the outsourcing of American jobs,” Durbin said, adding the proposed reforms would “end these abuses and protect American and foreign workers from exploitation”.
A key provision in the Bill essentially targets large Indian and other foreign tech companies operating in the US by prohibiting them “from hiring H-1B employees if they employ more than 50 people and more than 50 per cent of their employees are H-1B and l-1 visa holders”.
“This provision would crack down on outsourcing companies that import large numbers of H-1B and l-1 workers for short training periods and then send these workers back to their home country to do the work of Americans,” the two Senators said.
The Bill, which has been co-sponsored by three other Democratic Senators, speaks of reforms to “increase enforcement, modify wage requirements and ensure protection for American workers as well as visa holders”. It also gives the US Department of labour enhanced authority to review, investigate, and audit employer compliance with the visa programme requirements, as well as to penalise fraudulent or abusive conduct.
The Bill requires the production of extensive statistical data about the H-1B and l-1 programs, including wage data, worker education levels, place of employment and gender.
It is not clear how soon the Bill will make it to the Senate floor for debate and vote. For now, it has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Grassley, a long-time critic of H-1B visas, said the abuse of the system is real and cited reports that Americans being displaced were made to train their replacements who, according to him, were “lesser skilled workers who are coming in at lower wages on a visa programme that has gotten away from its original intent”.
The Bill also includes provisions to reform the l-1 visa programme, including establishment of a wage floor for l-1 workers; authority for the Department of Homeland Security to investigate, audit and enforce compliance with l-1 program requirements; and assurance that intra-company transfers occur between legitimate branches of a company and don’t involve “shell” facilities.
The Grassley-Durbin Bill will also for the first time seek to “prioritize the annual allocation of H-1B visas” to ensure that “the best and brightest students being educated in the United States receive preference for an H-1B visa”.