In addition, H1B Indian Tech Workers are Exploiting the L-1 Visa Program
Recently, abuses of the H1B visa program and its negative impact on American workers have been making headlines, particularly as American IT workers and computer engineers are replaced by cheaper white-collar workers from India.
However, another program, the L-1 visa, is being similarly exploited by recruiters and companies to obtain low-cost labor from India, but it is not as well-known or widely written about.
The L-1 visa allows multinational companies to transfer employees from foreign offices to their U.S. operations. There are two types: L-1A for executives and managers, and L-1B for workers with specialized knowledge.
Unlike H-1B visas, L-1A visas have no annual cap and no wage requirements, making them even more attractive to employers seeking to import cheaper foreign labor.
Indian nationals have dominated L-1 visa issuance for decades, rising from 4.5 percent in 1997 to 43.8 percent in 2006 and reaching 80.8 percent by 2011.
Because the L-1 program has no numerical limits, wage requirements, or labor protections, companies have used it to bypass the stricter rules of the H-1B program, which is capped at 85,000 approvals per year and requires wage and specialty-occupation verification.
The L-1A allows firms to transfer so-called executives or managers into the United States without proving they actually perform managerial duties, and many companies have used this loophole to replace American workers with lower-cost foreign labor.