Media ignore rampant fraud in visa programs
More details are emerging about how businesses hire cheaper foreign labor in technical fields, undercutting Americans’ chances of employment and putting national security at risk. However, many major media misrepresent the situation either intentionally or through ignorance. In Neil Munro’s article cited below, we get a fuller picture of what’s happening. Unfortunately, Oregon’s Congressional delegation has done nothing to help U.S. citizens in this situation. Better candidates may be on Oregon’s ballot in the May primary, and do-nothing incumbents could be retired.
ICE Sting Triggers Outrage from Progressives, by Neil Munro, Breitbart.com, Nov. 30, 2019
Excerpts only. Read the full article here.
“A skewed news report triggered many progressive politicians, activists, and journalists to declare outrage towards the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) deportation of more than 200 Indian students — even though the ICE operation was launched under former President Barack Obama to block commonplace fraud against U.S. college graduates. …
“Many Indian visa workers are ready to participate in fraudulent tactics because fraud is endemic in India.
“Once in the United States, fraud is rational because it helps many — not all — Indian temporary workers win the hugely valuable prizes of Americans’ white-collar jobs and of American citizenship …
“Americans’ professional codes of ethics have minimized domestic fraud in U.S. workplaces.
“But those codes blind Americans to the diversity of tactics used by many of the Indian graduates, such as inflating resumes, trading bribes for jobs, hiring relatives, and excluding unsuspecting Americans from job interviews. Some Indian workers readily provide anecdotal evidence of these practices to American reporters who want to listen.
“But there is little legal enforcement of workplace laws.
“The result is that some Indian managers can run U.S. offices where the vast majority of new hires are Indians, apparently without any fear that American officials will investigate the obviously skewed hiring patterns for racial, sexual, and anti-American discrimination.
“Alongside the Democrat politicians, many progressive journalists rushed to condemn ICE’s successful operation.
“The denunciations came from Politico’s Natasha Bertrand, Mark Bergen at Bloomberg, Matt Pearce at the Los Angeles Times, and Kyle Griffin at MSNBC. ‘Abolish ICE,’ reacted Farhad Manjoo, an immigrant columnist at the New York Times. ‘Leave it to the Trump administration to use a fake university. … How is this anything but entrapment?’ said a tweet from Jamil Smith at Rolling Stone.
“Radley Balko at the Washington Post declared ICE’s success as ‘so goddamned evil.’ Matthew Chapman of The Raw Story tweeted, ‘How have these students even committed a crime?’ …
“The ICE sting at the fake Farmington University worked because many Indian visa workers have become complacent about the enforcement of U.S. workplace laws.
“Obama’s deputies created the fake university to target the Indians who use fraud to get work permits via the Occupational Practical Training (OPT) program for foreign graduates and the Curricular Practical Training (CPT) program for foreign students.
“Those work permits were created and expanded by U.S. presidents seeking to placate high-tech investors, such as Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. The OPT and CPT work permits allow the Indian graduates to fly into the United States, pay their tuition, and then compete for the many low wage jobs offered by Indian managers at many U.S. companies. Those started jobs then allow the Indians to compete for coveted H-1B work permits, which allow them to apply for the hugely valuable prize of citizenship.
“These OPT and CPT jobs are varied and range from starvation wage jobs in Texas software sweatshops to $100,000 prestige jobs in Silicon Valley. The actual wages are difficult to track, partly because employers frequently shortchange their Indian workers and demand kickbacks. Indians are willing to pay the kickbacks because their U.S.-based Indian managers have the legal power to send them home or provide the hugely valuable prize of U.S. citizenship.
“The huge number of Indian visa workers has also ensured that fraud, caste politics, and bribery are increasingly common in workplaces that were once dominated by American white-collar professionals. For example, many U.S. professionals report anonymously that a large number of Indian managers only hire Indians and also refuse to hire Americans who cannot be trusted to stay quiet about kickbacks. Some of these complaints are documented by a growing number of lawsuits against Indian managers in U.S companies.
“The federal government provides some data about the American universities that accept tuition payments in exchange for awarding OPT and CPT work permits to the Chinese, Indian, and other foreign competitors of their American graduates.
“The data also shows the companies where managers are using the programs to hire foreign graduates instead of Americans. …
“Generally, establishment media outlets have ignored the many OPT and H-1B scandals — even though both have created political problems for President Donald Trump — but this progressive stampede may encourage more attention: …”
