America
Indians at the centre of H-1B visa debate
Washington, June 4
Indian H-1B visa holders
are at the centre of a raging debate over the usage of the temporary
visas after 250 employees of Walt Disney were replaced by Indian
immigrants as part of a reorganisation plan of the entertainment
conglomerate, a US daily said.
As many as 250 employees of Walt
Disney World were notified in October last year that they would be laid
off, but over the next three months they were required to "train their
replacements to do the jobs they had lost", The New York Times reported
on Wednesday. The replacements, the daily said, "were brought in by an
outsourcing firm based in India".
"The layoffs at Disney and at
other companies, including the Southern California Edison power utility,
are raising new questions about how businesses and outsourcing
companies are using the temporary visas, known as H-1B, to place
immigrants in technology jobs in the United States," the prestigious
daily said.
Immigrants on the H-1B visas do the work of Americans
for less money, which "has created a highly lucrative business model",
the NYT quoted a Howard University professor as saying.
"For
years, most top recipients of the visas have been outsourcing or
consulting firms based in India, or their American subsidiaries, which
import workers for large contracts to take over entire in-house
technology units -- and to cut costs. The immigrants are employees of
the outsourcing companies," the daily said.
The report named Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and HCL America among the top companies granted more than 1,000 H-1B visas.
Earlier
in April this year, a group of senators said the frequency of
H-1B-driven layoffs has increased dramatically in the recent past and
called for a probe into the issue.
Only 85,000 H-1B visas are
granted to foreigners each year, and they are in high demand. Technology
giants like Microsoft, Facebook and Google repeatedly press for
increases in the annual quotas, saying there are not enough Americans
with the skills they need.
HCL America was hired by Disney in 2012. The company said in a statement that details of the agreement were confidential.
On the layoffs, a Disney spokesperson said: "Disney has created almost 30,000 new jobs in the US over the past decade."