USCIS has announced that, during this year’s registration period for cap-subject H-1B filings, it received 781,000 registrations. This represents a 61% increase in registrations over the previous year and, with only 85,000 new H-1B’s available to registrants, this nearly 10 to 1 gap between demand and supply reveals just how broken the system is.
However, this sharp spike in registrations for cap-subject H-1B’s is not solely attributable to increases in employer demand. To the contrary, according to USCIS and as many have suspected, the jump in numbers is attributable to cheating. In particular, statistics show that, out of the totals, over 400,000 registrations were filed by the same 96,000 individuals. In other words, nearly half of the registration were multiple filings for the same individuals, who paid shell employers with non-existent jobs to “game the system.”
According to USCIS: “The large number of eligible registrations for beneficiaries with multiple eligible registrations — much larger than in previous years — has raised serious concerns that some may have tried to gain an unfair advantage by working together to submit multiple registrations on behalf of the same beneficiary . . . USCIS has already undertaken extensive fraud investigations, . . . and is in the process of initiating law enforcement referrals for criminal prosecution”
In particular, it is now clear that tens of thousands of hopeful H-1B beneficiaries paid thousands in fees to unscrupulous operators who created shell companies solely for the purpose of filing two, three, four or more registrations for the same individual. For the often-desperate beneficiary, multiple registrations meant a better chance at selection in the H-1B lottery. For the unscrupulous operators, it meant payments from beneficiaries for submitting the registrations and, if the registration was selected, extortionate fees from U.S. employers who would “contract” with the fraudulent company for the services of the selected beneficiary.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) expressed alarm on behalf of U.S. employers, eligible beneficiaries and the immigrant bar, stating that, not only does the H-1B system fail to meet legitimate demand, it has been “left vulnerable to exploitation” and it urged USCIS to “to thoroughly investigate, and if appropriate, prosecute those who submit fraudulent registrations.”
For those U.S. employers and H-1B candidates who filed registrations in good faith, trusting that the system would detect and eliminate fraud, there is disappointment. As the extent of the fraud is revealed, U.S. employers and H-1B candidates will undoubtedly lose confidence in the broken H-1B system and will seek alternatives – such as off-shore employment, or establishing income-generating investments in other countries, where immigration laws respond to the needs of the economy. American business and the global competitiveness of American companies are hurt when U.S. immigration laws hinder the hiring of high-skilled workers.
To express your outrage and to prompt Congress to act, contact the office of your Senator and Representative. Please do not wait; contact them by telephone, use their on-line portal and/or go to an in-person event to express dissatisfaction with the current system and to demand reform. Apathy is acceptance.