Sens. Jeff Sessions and Dick Durbin do not agree on much, but they have at least one common foe: companies that take advantage of the country’s visa program for high-tech workers.
Together they recently trumpeted the opening of a Labor Department investigation into potential violations of the H1-B program by two companies, Infosys and Tata, that use the program.
The high-tech program is one area where pro-immigration liberals such as Durbin, D-Ill., agree with immigration critics such as Sessions, R-Ala. In a rare joint press release, they announced they were “pleased” by the news that the department was taking a “first step to stanch this tide of visa abuse.”
“A number of U.S. employers, including some large, well-known, publicly traded corporations, have laid off thousands of American workers and replaced them with H-1B visa holders. To add insult to injury, many of the replaced American employees report that they have been forced to train the foreign workers who are taking their jobs,” the senators said in a joint statement.
Little is known about the probe other than it involves H1-B visa holders provided by Infosys and Tata to Southern California Edison, a power company. Stephen Miller, a spokesman for Sessions, said the department had not provided the lawmakers with any details regarding what was being investigated or why. The companies themselves were tight-lipped about it.
“Infosys is committed to compliance in all areas affecting our business, including immigration. We are aware that the Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, is conducting an H-1B-related investigation pursuant to its regulatory authority. Infosys will cooperate fully with the Labor Department in this investigation,” said the company in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
Tata spokesman Benjamin Trounson likewise said it was cooperating. “TCS maintains rigorous internal controls to ensure it is fully compliant with all regulatory requirements related to U.S. immigration laws, including those related to H-1B visas, and we are fully cooperating with this request for information,” he said in an email.
A representative from Southern California Edison did not respond to inquiries.
The department first acknowledged the probe in a June 10 letter to Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif. The letter says the investigation involves “Labor Condition Applications” by the companies, which are the documents that attest to the need for foreign workers because domestic ones cannot be found. “The department has also recently referred allegations concerning SCE and its contractor consultants to the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices at the Department of Justice for investigation,” the letter says.
The high-tech program has been a key sticking point in negotiations over an immigration reform bill in recent years. Business groups, who favor reform, have long said they are suffering shortages of skilled workers and have pushed for expansions of the program. Labor groups, who now generally favor higher immigration because they have had success in organizing immigrant-heavy industries, have balked at allowing more high-tech workers, arguing there is no shortage. The difference has often stalled efforts for supporters to unite behind a common bill.
Durbin’s uniting with Sessions illustrates the problem. Though usually supportive of higher immigration — he was a major advocate of the Dream Act to allow people brought into the U.S. as children to stay — Durbin, a strong organized labor supporter, has long been critical of the high-tech visa program.
“American workers continue to suffer with immigration laws that allow unscrupulous employers to game the system and import cheap foreign labor,” he said in a letter last year to the chief executive officers of Amazon, Cisco, Facebook, Google and others that use many H1-B workers, admonishing them to back a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would put limits on the H1-B program. Durbin’s language was similar to the criticisms used by Sessions to describe the overall immigration policy.
UPDATE: Southern California Edison issued the following statement:
“Southern California Edison (SCE) is reducing its IT department from about 1,400 employees to approximately 860 employees by mid-2015.
SCE has made, and will continue to make, difficult business decisions. By transitioning some IT operations to external vendors, along with SCE eliminating some customized functions it will no longer provide, the company will focus on making significant, strategic changes that can benefit our customers. This is not a challenge unique to SCE, but to many U.S.-based companies seeking to address IT needs.
It is important to note that SCE’s contracts with IT vendors Infosys and TCS require those companies to comply with all applicable laws and, specifically, those requiring valid and appropriate work authorizations for their employees performing services in the United States under contracts with SCE.
Moreover, many of the U.S.-based workers assigned by these vendors to the SCE contracts are permanent U.S. residents, including U.S. citizens, living in California or Ohio.”
