NEXTGOV
Hard numbers have been released by the U.S. government agency that screens visas for high-skilled foreign workers, and they are not pretty. Data made available by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for the first time show that the widely made complaint about the visa program is true: a small number of IT outsourcing companies get a disproportionately high number of H-1B visas and pay below-average wages to their workers.
The H-1B program was put in the spotlight in April, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order called “Buy American, Hire American” as part of his push to tighten immigration rules. Three months later, the USCIS formally disclosed the number of H1-B visas issued over the last two years by employer. Previously, the data was only available as estimates for companies petitioning for information, or by request under the Freedom of Information Act.
Almost 4,000 companies submitted H-1B visa applications in fiscal year 2016. The top 20 sponsors took home 37 percent of all visas issued 1. IT outsourcing companies made up the top five.