
H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers - griff1986
https://www.dol.gov/whd/immigration/H1Bwillfulviolator.htm
======
halflings
A lot of consultancy firms abuse this system, BUT: not all H1Bs are "cheap
labor". If you are not American and want to work in a tech company in the US,
you don't have much choice: 99% of the time, you have to get an H-1B.

I once got a position in a very interesting startup in Palo Alto (with a
salary significantly above average in the region), and the company was
thrilled to have me join them (because there really is a shortage of
candidates in my field)... until we learned that I didn't get my H-1B.

It's a lottery, the most stupid way to pick who gets to enter you country.
American tech companies are so frustrated with this system that they often
build offices in Europe just to be able to recruit local talent. Many
companies moved to Canada because the immigration law is more flexible there.

It baffles me that some people believe most non-American employees are just
"cheap labor". There are smart people on the other side of the pond as well!

~~~
supercanuck
>It baffles me that some people believe most non-American employees are just
"cheap labor".

It is not a "belief" because they are cheaper. Everytime this topic comes up,
a bunch of Ph.D's are shocked, SHOCKED! to learn that there are companies
abusing the system and to learn that Infosys, Wipro and Tata are the leading
H1-B Sponsors with an average salary of ~$73,000

[http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2015-H1B-Visa-
Sponsor.aspx](http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2015-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx)

~~~
surds
I have worked at one of the above mentioned companies and I have seen that A
LOT of people would be interested in getting to work here at ~73000, which
might be lesser than average but works fine for them.

Also, they probably have several other considerations in this matter: \- Get
the work experience of working in a different country at a client location
that means more responsibility, more learning, etc. \- Get the option to
travel and explore another country, and the job salary covers for the
expenses.

Now, usually, the role and responsibilities are that of a technical or
functional consultant. But they are not an individual employed directly by the
US company. Their employer, one of the above mentioned companies or one of the
several ones out there, is contracted.

Note that I haven't worked here in US at any company while being an employee
of a consultancy.

 _I believe_ that the US based company where the individual works might be
charged at a higher hourly rate but only a certain percentage of it makes to
the employee and thus they may have lesser salaries. I would love to have this
belief clarified, if anyone has any input.

All that being said, I agree that the abuse of H1-B sucks. Though it is all
too common outside the bay area. Haven't come across any instances here yet.

~~~
british_india
Hah! Abuse of the H-1B program is endemic across the United States--not just
in the Bay Area. No large city is excluded.

------
kinofcain
None of the largest body shops being present on the list is sad. The H-1B
program is all too clearly abused by large "consulting" firms to drive down
wages and mistreat visa holding employees under the threat of deportation.

~~~
dccoolgai
I've often wondered - I know there are requirements for them to "post" those
openings before they get the visa - if there is a way for "concerned citizens"
to challenge them through the department of labor or something... we could
make a website that would let professional engineers volunteer their spare
time go down the list of WiPro's (or whatever the big offender companies are)
visa requests and call BS on them.

~~~
mynameisvlad
They just have to post it at their place of business, so the public wouldn't
have access to them. This is unlike the EB3 process where a job posting has to
be made public as part of PERM.

~~~
dccoolgai
Actually, you're wrong according to:
[https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/FactSheet62/whdfs62O...](https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/FactSheet62/whdfs62O.htm)
for "H1-B Dependent Employers"

"Such employers must take good faith steps to recruit U.S. workers for any job
for which they seek H-1B workers."

~~~
mynameisvlad
From your own link:

> Either external _or internal_ to the employer’s workforce; or

So no, no public posting is required. It could all be internal recruiting and
still pass the bar for H1-B. "Good faith" is also a very broad definition so
it wouldn't surprise me that a very minimum amount of work is considered
within the scope of that.

------
jorblumesea
I can't believe in this day and age that anyone is arguing H1Bs aren't a means
to get access to cheap labor. If you've ever worked with any sort of
international company, you'll get connected to their "IT Team" which usually
has some tech sound name like cognizant etc. They are super heavily accented,
very eager to please, often poorly skilled and are paid far less than any
native born person.

If you deny this exists, you don't work in the tech sector. What is this then,
if not companies trying to maximize profits by exploiting foreign born
workers? It's just mind blowing we keep going over this again and again when
the reality is clear as day. The only logical conclusion of importing large
amounts of lower skilled workers with poor language skills is that they are
cheaper.

~~~
gumby
> I can't believe in this day and age that anyone is arguing H1Bs aren't a
> means to get access to cheap labor. ...If you deny this exists, you don't
> work in the tech sector.

Believe me. I work in the tech sector and I find H-1Bs cost us a lot more, and
always have (~25 years of reluctantly hiring H-1B folks from time to time).

There's a ton of paperwork that takes time and costs money and it delays
hiring the person. You also have to pay more than the "prevailing wage" which
is hardly a burden since I'm already going through all the hassle -- because
it's someone we can't find any other way so we're already planning on paying
them more. We resort to it when we can't find someone local, which mean we
start this slow process after already spending time trying to find someone.

I don't see any problem with this burden BTW (I mean I would like it to be
more convenient of course, but the idea that there is a bit of "trade barrier"
to bringing in someone from outside rather than hiring a local doesn't seem
like a terrible thing). And I'm an immigrant myself.

YES I understand there are H-1B sweatshops bringing in low-paid, not really
qualified drudges. They are a problem and they game the system in numerous bad
ways (including sucking up all the H-1s making it harder for startups to bring
in exceptional people).

But they are two disjoint problems -- the basic idea of H-1 is a good one.

~~~
jorblumesea
The way you are intending to use H1Bs is appropriate and fine. The way it is
actually used is very different. It's mostly used by large spaghetti code
factories that over promise and under deliver, pocketing the difference. I am
not proud that my country imports foreign workers and works them to death, nor
is it okay that they are taking jobs actual Americans can do.

If a system has a good basic idea but is flawed in practice, we should abolish
it, no? At the moment, no one is properly served by the H1B lottery except
these outsourcing firms.

~~~
gumby
There are people we can't get without it. How would you replace or reform it
to end abuse?

BTW I don't believe my experience is atypical.

------
anonte
There are many Indian consulting/vendor shops out there that flout many H1B
rules. 1. They take H1B filing fee from employee. 2. They keep you on bench.
if you have no job, the consulting firm will run a dummy payroll for you to
maintain legal visa status and you have to pay back payroll taxes to them to
make up for their loss. 3. Most of the time they will not have a job before
hand as required by H1B programme. They will hire some one, keep them on
payroll(point 2 above) and then start the search for a contractor work from
their clients.

There is lot of fraud going on there. I would say about 50% of H1B visas go to
these scams. Ask any Indians working on big companies and they can explain you
the bigger picture. Its pathetic that DHS/USCIS are unaware of these
widespread scams.

~~~
titomc
Here is the big picture.

Path 1 - worker outside US.

    
    
      1. Worker outside US gets in touch with body shops in US. 
      2. The body shops forces the worker to fake their work  experience, take money and apply H1B. 
      3. If it gets thru lottery,the worker lands in US. 
      4. The body shop provides cheap accommodation for the worker.
      5. The body shop runs fake payrolls. 
      6. The workers finds a contract job by faking skills and doing proxy interviews, lip syncs on video interview calls. 
      7. Gets the contract job. 
      8. Gets fired when the employer realises that the worker is fake.
      9. Goto step 5.
     10. In parallel , the body shop will start GC process and the fake worker becomes Green Card holder and finally a citizen.
    

Path 2 - Foreign students comes for MS in US

    
    
      1. Many students comes to US to do master's degree after their bachelors. 
       (especially people from a particular state from India,I do not want to mention the state)
      2. Finishes masters ( 2 years ). Gets an OPT work permit for 2 years.
      3. The body shops recruit these students with nil experience.
      4. Fake up their work experience to say 5 - 6 years.
      5. Runs fake payroll when they are job hunting.
      6. Send these students to work as a contractor and applies H1B for them. Since they have an MS degree , the odds are high for them to get selected in the lottery.
      7. These fake workers outsource their office job to India at night and get it done from an experienced worker for a small amount.
      8. At some point , the employer understands the worker is fake,fires the contractor.
      9. Goto step 5.
      10. In parallel,the body shop will apply for GC in EB2 category and the fake workers becomes a Green card holder within 7 years and eventually a citizen.

------
discardorama
Or, a list of those who couldn't afford the right lawyers.

~~~
ConfuciusSay02
I recommend Cohen & Grigsby.

They'll be happy to show you exactly how to run fake job ads locally in order
to exclude American workers, then they'll show you how to use the various
loopholes to get around what flimsy regulations exist, in order to get
yourself a bunch of low wage immigrant employees who live in fear of losing
their job and being sent back home.

See for yourself here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU)

------
CyanLite2
I didn't see Tata, Infosys, Disney, or Edison Electric anywhere on that list.
Did I miss something?

~~~
geodel
Yeah, you missed that rich and powerful are not really required to face
consequences of their actions.

~~~
jonwachob91
We'll see. Two of the victims from Disney's fiasco last year just filled a law
suit - [http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-
disney-h1b-visa-l...](http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-
disney-h1b-visa-lawsuit-20160125-story.html)

Hopefully the outcome from this lawsuit will hurt more then a flick on the
nose...

------
tptacek
The obvious problem here is that the real beneficiaries of H1B abuse are
companies our parents have heard of, but the named violators are the 1099 body
shops they source from, who nobody has heard of.

~~~
dennisgorelik
Good point.

I was always thinking about how bodyshops benefits from Microsoft/Google/etc.
lobbying in favor of H1b.

But you are right - bodyshops return the favor back to these tech giants by
placing these contractors there.

------
itissid
There is another problem that is eating away at the salary numbers of H1Bs its
called full time Curriculum Practical Training(CPT). Basically it was intended
to be a internship for students on an F-1(student) visa. Now many universities
have "Full time CPT[1]" that allows students to work 12 months at a time. This
itself is legal[2]. But I have seen many universities are gaming the system
like:[3]. Often times no real classes but only "training" is offered for real
work preparation. Enrollment bars are pretty low and there is no easy way to
determine how big this problem is.

[1] [http://international.syr.edu/current-students/employment-
ssn...](http://international.syr.edu/current-students/employment-
ssn/curricular-practical-training.html) [2]
[https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/complete-correct-
form-i-9/...](https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/complete-correct-
form-i-9/complete-section-1-employee-information-and-verification/foreign-
students) [3] [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/nyregion/new-jersey-
univer...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/nyregion/new-jersey-university-
was-fake-but-visa-fraud-arrests-are-real.html)

------
dyladan
This seems like an exceedingly small list

~~~
lighttower
Yes extremely short. And why all those East Asian names?

------
throwaway102938
I worked in a US Embassy consular section as a summer hire working with H1B
visas. Part of my job was to check that the companies were real. I was amazed
how many were fraudulent, even companies where we already had the DHS
paperwork to issue the visa. When I say fraudulent, I mean the addresses and
phone numbers for the company simply did not belong to any company. They were
incredibly transparent fronts for illegal immigration.

------
awinder
"Prince George's County Public Schools"

Interesting to find one public school system on the list, out of the entire
country (not that I had any expectations on who should be on the list, just
that 1 school system out of 13K school districts in the entire country)

~~~
gypsy_boots
PG County school district shares a border with Washington, DC, which may be a
reason why it got caught and other schools haven't yet. By that I mean, other
schools may in fact be in violation, but investigators (who are likely in DC)
heard about the practices going on right next door.

~~~
dudifordMann
Looks like this was the reason for the 2011 violation:

[http://www.today.com/id/44708445/ns/today-
today_news/t/forei...](http://www.today.com/id/44708445/ns/today-
today_news/t/foreign-teachers-american-dreams-vanish-flash/)

with the court ruling of:

[http://h1blegalrights.com/2011/07/md-countys-public-
schools-...](http://h1blegalrights.com/2011/07/md-countys-public-schools-
barred-from-h-1b-program-and-fined-for-wage-violations/)

------
_of
The H1B visa requires a minimum pay as it is right now. However, what some
companies do when they sponsor a foreign worker for H1B is to hire the person
part time on paper and thus being able to pay a lower wage, but still in
practice requiring him or her to work full time. This is an anecdote I heard
but I know it occurs. For many people, having the chance to come to the U.S.
is like winning the lottery, and they will not report their employer.

~~~
preetbhinder
They do have a prevailing wage clause but if you look up labor filings by most
tech companies the wages are on average MUCH lower than what Americans would
expect. I just saw a software developer petition for a company in San
Francisco for 79K.

~~~
durandal1
Though it does not take RSUs into account, and in the SF/SV a huge chunk of
the compensation tend to come in the form of RSUs.

~~~
preetbhinder
This was for a small startup which is not public. Even with options, 79K is
not prevailing wage in SF for a developer.

------
BuckRogers
I see one from my home state of Iowa. Worldwide Software Services, Inc. As a
proud native-born, raised and college educated Iowan that had to leave to
Chicago and Austin to find work, I will taking extra time to harass and shame
them. Companies like this are part of the reason why we can't find jobs and
have to migrate like cattle for them.

A good example where mob rule will be a good thing. I have my pitchfork ready.

Thank you for this link.

~~~
oneplane
Why can't you live off of the same salary as the 'cheap' workers? Sounds to me
that you think you are entitled to something...

~~~
BuckRogers
Are you entitled to jobs in my country? Get a job whatever 3rd world wasteland
you're from. Yes I am entitled to jobs in my own country.

------
tn13
If this is the list then I would say DoJ is not doing a good job. The level of
H1B corruption in USA is lot more than the level of corruption in Government
offices in India. Here are some malpractices I have observed in consultancies:

1\. Employers takes money from an individual to file H1B. Charges are
typically $4k. 2\. Employer runs a fake payroll pays peanuts to the employee
while showing a bug salary on paper. 3\. Consultancy creates fake resume of
its employees and the real work is then done by someone sitting in India. For
example Consultancy hires Ms. X on H1B with no work experience. Ms X then
works as consultant for an large E-Commerce giant through this consultancy
through a fake resume that shows that she has 7 years of experience. Ms X cant
code so she calls up a India office of the consultancy who do all the work
sometimes even by screen sharing. 4\. Hiring managers of large companies are
bribed to discriminate against normal Americans and hire these H1Bs through
consultancies. 5\. Ms x working for consultancy X gets a call from a large
company in bay area for interview. Ms Y goes and answers and clears the
interview but Ms X joins as employee. In fact answering interview for others
is what Ms Y does full time. 6\. For telephonic interview many of these
consultancies have setup complex systems where Ms Y answers the interiview on
Skype but she has a teleprompter in front of her.

Fake H1B:

A lot of these consultancies employ people on H4,F1 or any other visa by
telling their customers that these people have H1B. I suspect the large giant
companies in bay area already know all this but it works on either don't as or
don't tell basis or the hiring managers are bribed.

What I find most upsetting is that the media, overall tech industry does not
discuss this at all.

------
AdmiralAsshat
And what does this Wall of Shame actually do? Shouldn't the Department of
Labor be able to fine them or something rather than just publishing their
names?

~~~
pm90
It might be as a way to alert possible future employees.

~~~
sokoloff
Yes, the H1B prospects will no doubt use their incredible market position and
bargaining power to avoid these employers.

------
mseebach
It seems that opposition to H-1Bs is pretty widespread here. Do most people of
this position also support deportation of illegal immigrants, and efforts to
curtail illegal immigration? If not, why not? Genuinely interested in learning
how those positions are compatible.

~~~
jjn2009
I think given Tata, Infosys, Disney and Edison electric's behaviour is plenty
of reason for people to be critical of how we have setup H-1B. Illegal
immigration is illegal so that is a purely indefensible position to have to be
in support of illegal immigration. We have democracy and laws such as H-1B
which allow us to bring people into the country on our terms (laws which
require scrutiny from time to time). Any migration reform should be done
through legislation not willful ignorance of the laws. Otherwise what use is
the state if they cannot even do what they say they are going to do?

~~~
mseebach
I didn't expect anyone to be in favour of illegal immigration - what I'm
asking about are efforts to curtail illegal immigration and deport existing
illegal immigrants? To the extends that laws around H1Bs aren't working,
surely the laws around illegal immigration are working even poorer? The
population of illegal immigrants is many time higher than the population of
H1Bs.

~~~
ConfuciusSay02
The forces that support the broken and easily abusable H1B system are the same
forces that support illegal immigration: the large, entrenched business and
banking interests who want to keep wages low (and thus keep their profits
high). These forces spend a lot of money lobbying the government to do nothing
to curtail illegal immigration, fix the visa system, or punish the abusers.

I'm not sure if you're expecting to get a reply that encapsulates all of HN's
users position on this, but probably the reason that you see more H1B talk
here is because this site caters to people in the tech industry - affected by
H1B's more than the industries that are more affected by illegal immigrants
from Mexico.

------
coherentpony
Disney is not on the list?

~~~
cwilkes
maybe they don't directly employee the H1b holder instead going through a
consulting shop.

~~~
roughfalls
As a former employee of Disney, I can confirm that this is correct. Disney IT
goes through firms such as HCL and Cognizant who act as the H1-B sponsors. I'm
aware of a very small number of examples where Disney sponsored H1-B visas
directly, but those folks worked outside of IT and they did not displace any
existing employees.

------
beeboop
An obvious solution to this I've heard of before is to make the minimum salary
for H-1B workers to be very high. Over six figures. If the talent is really so
rare and difficult that you can't get it in the US, surely that talent is
worth spending more money on. Any reason this would be unfair?

~~~
akavi
Why not "auction" them? Ie, allocate them to the positions companies are
willing to pay the most for in descending order.

You'd have to require that the company keep that salary in place for some
number of years to prevent abuse, but that seems reasonable enough.

~~~
ones_and_zeros
How far down does "descending" go? It'd be a race to the bottom.

------
Overtonwindow
Something is wrong with this list.... Where's Facebook, Google, Disney,
Microsoft, and all of the other major corporations that have systematically
undermined and cheated the American workforce by importing cheap labor, and
then laying off the fully qualified, educated, and trained Americans?

~~~
Manishearth
Don't know about Disney, but the tech companies pay exactly the same for hires
at the same level regardless of where they are originally from.

H1B may have the benefit of being somewhat _bonded_ labor for them, but its
not cheap.

~~~
ConfuciusSay02
It also, in aggregate, has the effect of lowering, or preventing increases in,
wages in the larger labor market.

------
kehrlann
Mmmh, not being familiar with US immigration laws, I'm not sure I get
everything. Is this about companies who illegally "import" foreign workers
when they could have recruited US citizens ?

~~~
spriggan3
[https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/FactSheet62/whdfs62S...](https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/FactSheet62/whdfs62S.htm)

------
adrenalinelol
No Disney or Tata?

------
known
I've a better list [http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?98021-Companies-ruined-
or...](http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?98021-Companies-ruined-or-almost-
ruined-by-imported-Indian-labor-%28US%29)

------
oneplane
Why does that website look like it's straight out of 1995? It's a government
website, isn't it? Shouldn't it look more modern and professional?

------
ProAm
I think if you use H-1B for your company you should be denied from using any
tax breaks when filing US taxes.

~~~
bgribble
The US is a nation of immigrants. As it stands now, H1-B is one of the few
paths for technically-educated people to get lawful work and eventual
permanent residence and citizenship in the US.

I don't think there's anything wrong with sponsoring an H1-B for a talented
and qualified person who wants to live in the US. There's room, and there are
jobs, and complaining about immigrants is just stupid.

That said, the H1-B gives companies way too much leverage over their workers.
In a "restructuring" of my former employer (aka entering the drain-spiral) ,
the NYC office was closed and most people were offered the "opportunity" to
relocate to Sacramento, or take severance. Not a single person relocated....
except the lone H1-B, who had a new baby and didn't feel like he had any
choice because he could lose his visa otherwise. That kind of coercive force
is a sign of a broken power dynamic, due to a broken law.

~~~
dudul
An H1-B is _not_ a path to permanent residence. Having an H1-B does not help
in any way with getting a green card. If you apply through employment the
sponsoring company does not get any fee reduction, the application is not
processed any faster. This is a completely independent petition.

The only way you could say an H1B is a path to immigration is for the case
where a non-immigrant meets a spouse and get a green card through marriage.
That's what happened to me, but this is really just by accident. Someone under
a student visa could experience the same outcome for example.

You sait it yourself, the power of companies over H1Bs is overwhelming. Upon
termination, an H1B has to leave the country in the following 24 hours, there
is no "grace period" even though it's a widespread myth.

~~~
zht
It's not a path in the most pedantic term, but if I were born in China or
India, the usual path is

1\. do masters in the US

2\. work on OPT until I am fortunate enough to be picked in H1B lottery, or
until my OPT runs out, whichever comes first

3\. IF I get picked in H1B lottery, apply for PR

4\. wait 4-8 years for my category to be current

5\. eventually get PR

short of an investor visa, marrying someone who is a citizen, qualifying for
EB1, or applying from abroad and waiting 10 years, how else do I get a green
card?

~~~
throwaway6497
More like 8-12 years, if you switch a job without getting a I-140 approved and
12+, if you switch jobs and GC process gets reset for each job change.

------
pcr0
Link seems to be down?

------
kinkrtyavimoodh
I see a lot of general anger against H-1B visas, so hear me out. There are
broadly two kinds of Indians who work in the US legally (I will come to the
illegal part later) under H-1B visas.

[1] The first is typically graduates from elite Indian engineering
institutions (Indian Institutes of Technology, or a few other institutes) who
have either gotten a job offer from a US firm for their US office straight out
of college, or have come to the US for graduate school and are now entering
the workforce. These are, in an overwhelming majority of cases, NOT cheap
labour. They are hired at market rate (sometimes even higher, because they
typically have strong profiles), they compete with the rest of the student and
larger labour pool and get these jobs based purely on merit. For reference, I
have plenty of friends who are in this category (I am too), and all of us get
paid competitive market salaries. We are also not beholden to any firm and are
pretty free to switch jobs if we desire. A lot of us have paid for graduate
school in the US too, so it's not like we are just somehow freeriding. This is
the kind of crowd you typically encouter in the Bay Area.

[2] The second category typically consists of people who don't have a stellar
educational background, and are mostly hired in India by companies like
Infosys, TCS, Wipro et al. for typically very low salaries (say 1/4th or 1/3rd
of what a Googler would get in India). They mostly work on outsourced projects
that come from other companies (both in India and outside). Often, these
workers are then transfered to the US, where they work as vendors for
companies such as Microsoft. They are technically employees of TCS or Wipro or
whatever (which have branches in the US), and are on the payroll of these
companies, but work for companies like Microsoft. This pool of workers is
indeed cheap labor for the big cos because they can a) skimp on stuff such as
insurance costs b) typically have to pay less anyway c) the low salary is
still pretty high compared to what the worker would have otherwise been able
to command in India, d) the worker has relatively lower job mobility because
their resumes are probably not as 'employable' as Category [1]

Like it or not, [2] far outnumbers [1]. I don't remember the link right now,
but these companies apply for in the order of 1000 H-1B visas every year. Most
startups etc, for example, apply for a few or in the order of tens at best.

The illegal bit is of course what a few other commenters wrote—there are these
'consulting firms' which will apply for H-1B on your behalf (you pay them $5K
or whatever). If you get through the lottery, you can now move to the US on
H-1B. You don't have an actual job though you are on the consulting firm's
payroll. You then transfer money to them under the table, which they pay back
to you as 'salary' because you are on their payroll after all. In the
meanwhile, they try to find a job for you. If they can find a job you will
then work wherever they set you up and they take a cut of your salary. This is
typically done by people who want to accompany their spouses to the US but
don't want to be on H-4 visas which don't let you work.

------
anon987
On a related note, the FBI recently uncovered a $20m H1B fraud operations
[http://www.computerworld.com/article/3064712/h1b/us-
uncovers...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/3064712/h1b/us-
uncovers-20m-h-1b-fraud-scheme.html)

