Thread: Caterpillar Hires H-1B Foreign Graduates, Fires 300 American Professionals

by NEIL MUNRO
6 Sep 2016

Caterpillar is firing 300 American employees in Mossville, Illinois, even though it is continuing to recruit and pay foreign “H-1B” guest-workers to do the white-collar jobs sought by American professionals in the United States.

Caterpillar’s combination of white-collars layoffs and H-1B outsourcing matches the much-criticized decision by Carrier, a company in next-door Indiana, to outsource 1,400 blue-collar factory jobs to Mexico.

Outsider GOP candidate Donald Trump has vigorously denounced the outsourcing by Carrier’s air-conditioning business. His opposition has helped him get a nine-point polling advantage in the state. But Trump’s support for major reforms to the H-1B program to reduce the outsourcing of professional jobs is raising his support among upper-income professional-class voters in many other states.

The Caterpillar outsourcing “is all the same thing happening over and over again,’ said John Miano, a lawyer and software expert who has sued the federal government to reduce or stop various outsourcing programs, such as the H-1B visa. “What we see is that companies ask for more [H-1B visas] while they’re laying off the same kind of [American professionals] … this is going to be an election that decides whether this continues,” Miano said.

Early in 2016, Caterpillar asked the federal government for 71 H-1B visas needed to hire foreign white-collar college-grads. At least 30 of the requested H-1B visas are for engineers and other skilled professionals in Mossville, which is suffering the most layoffs.

At least 44 of the visas requested in 2016 are for foreign graduates who are already working at Caterpillar in the United States. These “continuation” visas are automatically approved, and do not count against the much touted annual limits on H1-B visas.

Another 22 of Caterpillar’s visas are for new hires.

Since 2012, Caterpillar has requested 768 visas for H-1B workers. Roughly speaking, companies get one-fifth of the H-1B visas they request, suggesting the company has outsourced at least 100 U.S.-based jobs to lower-wage foreign graduates.

The visa allows the H-1B workers to stay for at least three years, and some manage to stay permanently. For example, the company has also helped get green cards — the precursor to citizenship — for roughly 70 foreign college graduates. Most of these green card employees have replaced Americans software graduates.



Caterpillar has not responded to emails from Breitbart.

While Trump has promised to reform the controversial H-1B program as part of his plan to ensure that immigration law helps Americans before companies or foreign workers, Hillary Clinton has been a strong supporter of the H-1B program, and her foundation has tried to hire more than 130 foreign professionals in place of young Americans.

That political difference over white-collar outsourcing may become critical in the new few weeks when Trump tries to raise his support among college graduates.

Trump is already doing well among blue-collar families, party because of his promise to start enforcing existing laws that bar the hiring of illegals. But Trump is doing poorly among college-graduates, partly because few white-collar workers yet recognize the pocketbook impact to them of federal immigration practices. Fewer still know that states are also allowing illegal immigrants to work in professional jobs.

American professionals prefer to ignore the threat from the government’s H-1B program, said Miano. “They all all think ‘I’m good… if I keep up my skills, I don’t have anything to worry about’ — but they don’t know these [hiring] decisions are being made by accountants who have no idea what their skills are,” he said.

That outsourcing process is a huge threat to the middle class because it is “cutting off the ability of people to rise up,” he said. “The whole thing of the middle class is to send your kids to college, get professional jobs and move up — but now that is being destroyed” by outsourcing, Miano said.

Many companies outsource U.S. white collar jobs to foreign professionals — Disney, DeLoitte, many hospitals, Facebook, Intel, Qualcomm, Microsoft, plus many smaller companies, such as the Toys R Us retailer, Cengage publishing firm, and New York Life insurance company. The scale and details of the outsourcing movement can be tracked at websites, including MyVisaJobs.com.

Virgil Bierschwale, a displaced software expert, has posted details of the H-1B program and maps showing the locations and employer contacts for H-1B requests.

Much of the 2016 H-1B outsourcing at Caterpillar is for engineering jobs held by Americans.



Commercial job search boards show many Americans are qualified for those jobs. Indeed.com, for example, offers the resumes of 2,445 engineers within a 25-mile distance of Mossville, including some recently posted resumes of Caterpillar’s soon-to-be-outsourced employees.



These engineering jobs are in the so-called STEM field, which the federal government — and the private sector — has long declared will provide a secure upward path for American college grads.

However, even as young Americans study to earn places in colleges, the federal government is helping companies employ a population of roughly 650,000 H-1B professionals in the United States.

The resident population of around 650,000 H-1B outsourcing professionals includes roughly 100,000 jobs at universities. The outsourced university jobs include tens of thousands of professors and lecturers, doctors and therapists, scientists and researchers.

Most of the 650,000 outsourced H-1B jobs are in the information technology sector, where the imported professionals have lowered wages throughout the industry and forced middle-aged Americans into new, lower-paying careers — such as journalism — at just the time when they need good pay to help their children get a good education.

Many additional outsourced H-1B jobs are in business and finance, architecture and design, p.r. and media, health care, and teaching.

The wide variety of jobs shows how the H-1B outsourcing is reaching far beyond Silicon Valley. For example, companies such as CVS are increasingly using foreign college graduates to replace American pharmacists in Washington D.C., New York, and across the nation.

“If American professionals don’t stand up soon, they’ll be going the way of the auto workers and the factory workers in just a few years,” said Miano.

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presid...professionals/

Oh crap, Caterpillar is so stupid. WHAT ARE YOU DOING MORONS??!! You will ruin your company and end up getting sued like all the others who did this. American Professionals are the best key to your success, not H1B foreign "graduates".

Disgusting. I've lost all respect for Caterpillar now.

Sooooo disappointed to hear this.

STOP THE INSANITY!!

VOTE FOR DONALD J TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!

I did not read the article thoroughly, but I stuck on the term "foreign college graduates" and I'm guessing that when they say "foreign college graduates", they are talking about foreign students enrolled in US universities, here on student visas, who lateral over to the H1B visas. They are not talking about foreign students who have graduated from universities in their country of origin. They are not actually talking about people immigrating for purposes of the H1b visas, they are talking about graduates who are already here on student visas.

This has got to stop and here is what should be done with those students who are here on student visas. Before a foreigner applies for a H1b visa, they must fulfill the following:

When a foreign student graduates from a US university, their student visa expires and they must fulfill an exit visa to their country of origin. They may not re-enter the US for purposes of employment until they are employed in a profession related to their major in their country of origin for a period of three years (for example). And they may only apply for employment in some field related to the major they studied in the US.

If they attended some other university outside of the US, but not their country of origin, they must also have been employed in their country of origin for a period of three years before applying for an H1b visa here.

The whole point of allowing foreign students to study abroad is to advance the interests of their country of origin by educating their people. If their people will not return to their country of origin, then that country of origin does not benefit. By elevating those countries by educating their people, then we advance the prestige of the universities where they go to study.

We need at least a 10 to 20 Year Moratorium on All New Immigration including Student Visas. We have American Kids who need all those spots in our colleges and universities. Enough is Enough.

Think in some cases, the schooling is paid by us too. Do know they come here by the hordes and many to achieve masters degree and be hired afterwards too. Keep in mind India does have TB problems and not one is req'd to be tested before entering the USA. Indians make up @ 88% of h1-b visas and their country has a $167 billion outsourcing business too.

‘Proposed US visa curbs violate trade rules’

Amiti Sen




If implemented, New Delhi will challenge the proposal at the WTO, says official

New Delhi, July 12. 2016:

India will contest the new curbs on non-immigrant visas being considered by the US if they are implemented as they violate multilateral trade rules more blatantly than the earlier decision to sharply increase visa fees for professionals, a government official said.

“The new Bill completely disregards the General Agreement on Trade in Services as it talks about prohibiting companies from hiring on H1B and L1 visas. GATS does not allow such restrictions,” an official told BusinessLine.

At the World Trade Organization (WTO), New Delhi has already challenged the US decision to impose higher visa fees for workers hired on H1B and L1 visas by Indian IT firms that employ a considerable number of non-Americans.

“Since we have already challenged the US decision to impose higher visa fees, it will not be difficult to challenge the new proposal as both basically are targeted against our IT industry,” the official said.

However, India will first try to sort out the issue bilaterally, with the US Trade Representative’s office. “The Commerce Ministry is studying the proposed legislation and discussing it with lawyers. The issue will be taken up with the US at the highest level and New Delhi will ask Washington to drop the proposal as it is not compliant with global trade laws,” the official said.

Tough law
The H1B and L1 Visa Reform Act of 2016 that was introduced by Democratic Congressman Bill Pascrell from New Jersey and Republican Dana Rohrabacher from California in the US House of Representatives last week seeks to prohibit companies from hiring H1B employees if they employ more than 50 people, and more than 50 per cent of the employees are H1B and L1 visa holders.The new legislation, if implemented, would affect the US operations of Indian IT companies such as Infosys and Wipro, which employ a high number of Indian IT professionals. For the proposal to get implemented, the US Senate will have to pass the Bill and it has to be signed into law by the US President.

Indian IT companies are already under financial pressure with Washington’s decision in December last year to not just reintroduce the border security cess on H1-B and L1 visa fees, which lapsed in September, but to double it to $4,000 and $4,500 for H1B and L1 visas, respectively.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/...cle8840382.ece

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US Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Prevent Indian Firms from Hiring on H-1B, L1 Visas
By PTI on 09/07/2016
H-1B visa is popular among Indian techies. Representative Image. Credit: Reuters

Washington: A bipartisan group of two US lawmakers has introduced in the House of Representatives a legislation, which if passed by the Congress would prevent Indian companies from hiring IT professionals on H-1B and L1 work visas.

Since the revenue model of majority of big Indian IT companies is heavily dependent on H-1B and L1 visas in the US, such a bill is likely to have a major impact, if not sound a death knell, on their businesses.

The H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2016 introduced by Democratic Congressman Bill Pascrell from New Jersey and Republican Dana Rohrabacher from California would prohibit companies from hiring H-1B employees if they employ more than 50 people and more than 50% of their employees are H-1B and L-1 visa holders.

Before the bill is signed into a law by US President Barack Obama, it needs to be passed by the Senate, wherein it has not been tabled so far. Notably, the two sponsors of the bill come from the two American states which have the maximum concentration of Indian Americans.

“America is producing many skilled, high-tech professionals with advanced degrees and no jobs. By in-sourcing and exploiting foreign workers, some businesses are abusing the visa programs and undercutting our workforce to reap the rewards,” Congressman Pascrell said.

“Without the critical reforms our bill proposes, American workers will continue to be unfairly displaced and visa workers will continue to be mistreated – both of which are unacceptable,” he said in a statement.

Noting the foreign outsourcing companies were the top users of the H-1B and L-1 visa programs, a media statement issued by the Congressman’s office said over the years a number of concerns had been raised about how certain companies were using these visa programs, including a 2011 report from the Government Accountability Office calling for reform.

Pascrell and Rohrabacher had introduced a similar version of this bill in 2010, which could not gain enough support in the Congress.

The lawmakers said the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2016 would close loopholes in the H-1B and L-1 visa programs, reduce fraud and abuse, provide protections for American workers and visa holders, require more transparency in the recruitment of foreign workers, and increase penalties on those who violate the law.

http://thewire.in/50277/us-introduce...on-h-1b-visas/

Pascrell and Rohrabacher had introduced a similar version of this bill in 2010, which could not gain enough support in the Congress.

Congress is no longer our friend, because members no longer represent the citizens of their district or the people of the United States. I won't refer to them as an enemy, but they are definitely not our friends. Friends don't treat friends the way the US Congress treats its own citizens.

This problem with the H1Bs could have been solved 6 years ago, but an all talk, no action Congress failed to act. The same as they never pass important legislation that would solve illegal immigration, reduce this excessive legal immigration, or fix our trade deals, or upgrade our military and infrastructure, or solve poverty, unemployment or crime.

Originally Posted by Judy

We need at least a 10 to 20 Year Moratorium on All New Immigration including Student Visas. We have American Kids who need all those spots in our colleges and universities. Enough is Enough.

I think once we start enforcing exit visas and restricting H1b visas as I describe, the appetite that foreign students have for our universities will dry up. But I would have no objections otherwise to a long term moratorium on student visas.