Thread: Banks Continue to Replace Americans with H-1B Workers

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Despite Rising Unemployment, Banks Continue to Replace Americans with H-1B Workers

Amid last week's announcement that the nationwide unemployment rate has now climbed to 8.5% (Bureau of Labor Statistics), immigration experts and media reports have highlighted how banks who received funding from last year's $700 billion federal bank bailout are utilizing the H-1B visa program to replace American workers with cheap foreign labor. This discrimination against American citizens in favor of foreign workers continues despite legislation aimed to prevent this. In February, Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) successfully attached the "Employ American Workers Act" (EAWA) to the stimulus bill.

While EAWA did not impose a flat ban on H-1B workers for entities who received a taxpayer bailout, it did seek to prevent these entities from displacing American workers with H-1B visa holders. (See FAIR's Legislative Update, February 17, 2009). An analysis of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' interpretation of EAWA reveals two loopholes that will allow entities that received a bank bailout to continue to employ H-1B workers without violating federal law. Since EAWA does not actually impose a flat ban on H-1B workers for banks that were bailed out, USCIS interpreted the legislation so that "EAWA does not apply to H-1B petitions seeking to change the status of a beneficiary already working for the employer in another work-authorized category." Accordingly, banks can circumvent the intended protections of EAWA by hiring a foreign student, without first recruiting Americans. A bank can simply hire the foreign student under the Optional Practical Training (OPT) section in the F-1 student visa program, and then petition to move the student to H-1B status. At that point, the H-1B worker would be an existing employee exempt from any EAWA limitation. USCIS has also determined that EAWA "does not apply to H-1B petitions seeking an extension of stay for a current employee with the same employer," further allowing bailout recipients to continue to employ H-1B visa holders instead of Americans. (USCIS Update, March 20, 2009; USCIS Questions and Answers, March 20, 2009).

On Thursday, March 30, WSOCTV in Charlotte, North Carolina revealed that bailout recipients Wachovia and Bank of America are utilizing a process known as "on-shoring" to allow them to continue to lay off American workers and replace them with H-1B visa holders. According to the report, the on-shoring process involves using "third-party consultants to find workers in other countries instead of hiring foreign workers directly." These consultants can then "provide foreign workers their H-1B visas," and send them to work at one of the banks. Since the banks are paying the contractor rather than the employee directly, it's not a violation of EAWA. While Bank of America and Wachovia refused to comment on whether they were still using H-1B workers hired by third-party consultants, WSOCTV obtained an internal Wachovia document that showed "a Wachovia work group where 12 of 22 software engineers were brought to Charlotte by a technology consulting company called Syenchron." Additionally, a Charlotte resident told WSOCTV that he would be losing his job at Wachovia as soon as he finishes training his replacement — a foreign worker brought in from India to do his job at a lower salary. (WSOCTV, March 30, 2009).

NC's unemployment rate is 10.7 currently, and these TARP fund recipients have the nerve to bring in H1-B workers, while humiliating American employees, requiring them to train their replacements. Charlotte is going to see a glut of hungry and homeless bank employees who can't even get a job mowing lawns because illegals will do it for cheaper.
A friend of mine, who was a mediator for consumer disputes at GM for years, saw the division shipped to Canada, and for severance pay, had to train the Canadian replacement.
THIS HAS GOT TO STOP!