it's my understanding that a verifiable effort to fill the job internally has to occur before the worker can be brought in.
There is no protection whatsoever for Americans being replaced by foreign workers on H1-B visas, except in the case of [mostly Indian] 'body shops,' who represent a small percentage of the employers who hire H1-Bs.
A typical scenario would be that an American company would fire all the programmers in one group, replacing them with a smaller number of usually Indian programmers. The American programmers are forced to train their replacements as a condition of receiving their severance pay.
The Indian programmers would act as liaison to a larger group of programmers working in India, who would do the bulk of the programming work, at salaries perhaps 20% of American salaries.
The Indian programmers in the U.S. would invariably make less than the Americans they replaced. Although they are required to earn "prevailing wages," it's a toothless provision legally; their job titles are simply downgraded.
The Indian programmers in the U.S. are completely dependent on their employers good will to stay in the U.S. for up to six years, and for any chance they have of getting a green card. So they work hard and don't complain,
As a [former] American programmer, I don't mind competing against anyone in the world [and we always have done], but I don't like competing against people in effective "indentured servant" status, and I don't like the U.S. government making every effort to transfer American jobs to foreign countries thru this H1-B program.
We are transferring huge parts of our technological economy to India, China, Russia, etc. and this chicken may come home to roost both economically and militarily.
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