U.S. H-1B program may be rigged against smaller employers

Dive Brief:

Large employers receive a clear, unfair advantage when it comes to using the H-1B visa program, according to an article in the New York Times.
Many visas are distributed via lottery and the Times reports that a relatively small number of giant global outsourcing companies flood the system with applications, significantly increasing their success odds.
The H-1B program was desinged to help American companies hire foreign workers with exceptional skills, to fill open jobs and to help their businesses grow, wrote the Times' Julia Preston. Yet, because of the way those large outsourcers game the system, the program has failed many U.S. employers who cannot get visas for foreign workers with the special skills those small employers need.

Dive Insight:

The Times reports that according to federal records those outsourcing firms have come to dominate the program. For example, in the recent past they have obtained many thousands of the visas — which are capped by law at 85,000 annually — by "gaming" the H-1B program without technically breaking the rules, researchers and lawyers told the Times.

Of the top 20 companies receiving the most H-1B visas in 2014, 13 were global outsourcing operations, according to an analysis of federal records by Ronil Hira, a professor at Howard University who studies visa programs. The top 20 companies took nearly 40% of the visas available — about 32,000 — while more than 10,000 other employers received far fewer visas each. Also, around half of the 2014 applications failed because the cap was reached.

“The H-1B program is critical as a way for employers to fill skill gaps and for really talented people to come to the United States,” Hira told the Times. “But the outsourcing companies are squeezing out legitimate users of the program. The H-1Bs are actually pushing jobs offshore.”

An immigration official interviewed by Preston said the selection process is totally random. “We cannot speculate as to why one company has more petitions selected in the cap," said Shinichi Inouye, a spokesperson for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency in charge of the visa program.