Criminal networks are selling Americans’ white-collar jobs via the huge and complex H-1B visa program, says Anthony D’Esposito, the Inspector General at the Department of Labor.
“This is not just fraud: This is a criminal enterprise that stretches far beyond the borders of America,” D’Esposito told Breitbart News during an interview in his D.C. office. He explained:
Without revealing too much of an investigation, I think that when complete, one of the things that will probably make the American people most angry… and will probably lead to the biggest change from lawmakers — they will probably bring oversight to this — [is] the fact that many of the individuals that you’re talking about that are selling these jobs, getting kickbacks. We will clearly outline and define their relationships with — whether it’s gangs [or] whether it is transnational criminal organizations.
Esposito met with Breitbart News to describe the purpose and scale of his investigation of fraud within the huge, multi-decade H-1B visa program, which now keeps at least 1 million non-immigrant foreign workers in U.S. jobs sought by American graduates.
D’Esposito’s investigation launched July 8 and is part of Vice President JD Vance‘s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud project.
“The visa issue and the foreign labor issue have been something that the American people — and probably a lot of politicians — have talked about for a long time,” D’Esposito said, adding: “The president of the United States has made it very clear that he wants to put the American worker first.”
The program annually imports roughly 120,000 workers. Most are imported by Fortune 500 companies, staffing subcontractors and other companies. Universities, hospitals, and non-profits can import as many H-1Bs as they wish, including for shared research with companies. The employers do not need to offer the jobs to Americans, and they can endlessly extend the visas in three-year increments. The government also provides work permits for spouses, so the number of jobs now held by the imported workers is roughly 1 million.
The H-1B visas are extremely valuable to foreigners. They allow for much higher wages than can be earned in the workers’ home countries. They also come with many benefits, including work experience and possible promotions, plus the ability to live in American suburbia, citizenship at birth for the employees’ newborns, and a track to naturalization for the employees.
Historically, the federal government has conducted almost zero oversight over the flow of migrant workers into and through the various visa worker programs. But President Donald Trump’s deputies are stepping up oversight and rewriting regulations.
D’Esposito said:
The very purpose of the H-1B visa was for American companies who had specific or unique needs — but couldn’t find the workforce to move their company forward — [to have] the opportunity to bring foreign labor in for a temporary status in order to get their company moving. What we’ve seen is unfortunately companies have decided, well, their whole workforce should be [on] H-1B visas, and quite frankly that’s taking away from work from the American people.
After we heard from so many whistleblowers and we’ve had so many complaints, we decided that we were going to launch an investigation, and it is a complex issue. It’s not one that we’re going to be able to find results immediately. I will say that in the short time that we have been investigating, we’ve already conducted multiple search warrants in multiple states, and in the process of those search warrants, we’ve revealed that other crimes are being committed. We’ve recovered several firearms. We’ve charged people with other crimes…
We are going to exhaust every lead to make sure that we leave no stone unturned. I think that the complexity of this investigation is probably tremendous… We’re beginning to peel the onion back, and as we peel the layers, we are going to see that this issue is something that is plaguing the United States of America.
D’Esposito was cautious when describing the nature and scale of the H-1B fraud, which is entangled with many other similar visa programs, including the huge but never-legislated Optional Practical Training program that provides short-term work permits to 400,000 new foreign graduates of U.S. colleges.
“The scope of the investigation is very broad,” he said, after being asked if the investigation would deal with any of the other visa programs that overlap with H-1Bs.
For example, when temporary visa workers lose their legal status, they can be pressured to keep working as illegals, D’Esposito said:
It is said that someone on an H-1B visa is making… between 25 and 30 percent less than what an American worker would make. And then what’s happening is when those H-1B visas are expiring, there’s many employers who are saying, “Well, you can stay here, but we’re going to pay you [less]. If we were paying you $20 before, if you don’t want us to to rat you out that you’re still here, we’ll pay you $5.” So now there’s people living in terrible conditions, getting paid dirt money, and the worst part about it is they’re taking jobs from an American worker.
The costs of this black market in white-collar jobs go far beyond the damage to Americans and their families. “It’s also a story that’s going to tell itself,” D’Esposito told Breitbart News:
When you focus on the fact that there are people that are in this country only to take jobs from American workers, and they are not participating in the American Dream as an American worker would. I think it it will be very clear that the investment into the economy and productivity would be much more beneficial with American workers.
Many more American politicians — and even investors — are speaking against the damage as polls show rising public awareness and opposition. The underemployment rate for new US. college grads is roughly 40 percent, said an August 6 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The combined unemployment and underemployment rate for computer science graduates is 26 percent, the bank noted.
The investigation is focused on the labor market, not migrants, D’Esposito said.
“I don’t think that the individuals in every case are the bad guys,” D’Esposito said as he blamed government and employers for the damage:
They are pawns in a dangerous chess game being played by these big companies that want cheap labor. The fact is, is if you’re paying someone with an H-1B visa between 25 and 30 percent less than an American worker, and you multiply that by hundreds, if not thousands, of workers, well, that’s a tremendous savings for for the company.
The fact is the real people to blame are the federal government — because the federal government allowed it to go unchecked — and the companies who are taking away jobs from the very people who they need to buy their product in order for them to stay in business… So I don’t think that the the individuals in every case are really the the bad guys. I think that they are being utilized as as pawns in a seriously dangerous operation.
D’Esposito’s investigation is building on the growing number of revelations by lawyers, advocates, writers, and tech professionals, usually via social–media accounts.
So far, the establishment media has done almost nothing to investigate or expose the organized replacement of their white-collar peers in America’s professional class.
Read the full article here
