Ten years after he was fired from Disney, Leo Perello still believes the visa program for skilled international workers is deeply flawed, and that’s what led to his career in information technology. They charge that they are in the precarious position of having to train their foreign replacements.
“The whole thing is a gross fraud against the American people,” Perello said. Perello was eventually able to get back on his feet and find another job in the IT field.
After being fired in 2015, the Central Florida resident met with then-sympathetic Donald Trump, spoke about the issue at Trump’s rallies, testified before Congress and told his story on “60 Minutes.” shared.
Despite receiving so much national attention, Perello said politicians have not fixed critical loopholes in the H-1B visa program. A decade later, the program remains the subject of intense debate, polarizing members of President Trump’s MAGA movement as he prepares for a second term as a white president. Congress vows to quickly crack down on immigrant abuses.
Prominent Trump supporters like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy say the H-1B visa is essential to America’s economic success, attracting the world’s top talent and giving the United States global dominance. They claim that it helps them stand up. The program allows companies and organizations to bring in educated foreign professionals to fill “specialty” jobs that are difficult to fill with U.S. workers.
But critics, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, MAGA leader Steve Bannon and other Republican leaders, say it is unfair to allow companies to outsource jobs to low-wage foreigners. It is claimed that. The debate took place in December on the I stood.
Florida has a significant stake in the outcome of this debate. Companies and institutions based here, from the University of Florida to AdventHealth to iconic brands like Publix and cruise ship operator Carnival Corporation, will fill the jobs, according to federal immigration data reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel. depend on this program for.
In total, Florida-based businesses and institutions list about 9,500 H-1B visa holders as employees, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data. More than 386,000 H-1B visa holders were approved nationwide in the 2023 budget year, of which 119,000 were first-time approvals and approximately 267,000 received extensions of existing visas. These are the latest numbers available from the federal government.
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DeSantis’ top donor, Republican megadonor Kenneth Griffin, runs the Citadel hedge fund, which has employees on H-1B visas in Florida. Griffin said immigrants are an important part of Miami-based Citadel’s leadership team.
“These are people who came to this country and left everything behind because they believed in the American Dream and the opportunities that our country represents,” Griffin said at an event in November, adding that legal immigration should be supported. He explained his opinion that it should be done. He referred to what he called “chaos at the southern border.”
The American Immigration Council argues that H-1B visa holders fill a critical need in science, engineering, and technology, and that these foreign workers often go on to start their own businesses in the United States. .
But Perello and other critics say the H-1B program has strayed from its purpose of addressing skilled labor shortages and now supports offshoring business models that prioritize profits over American workers. claims to be doing so.
Compared to the broader job market, H-1B visa workers fare well, with a median salary of $118,000, according to federal data. Employers must offer a “prevailing wage” that is consistent with what U.S. workers earn for comparable jobs. But some researchers doubt whether that will happen.
Employers have wide discretion in classifying jobs and setting salaries, allowing them to keep H-1B workers’ pay low, according to a 2020 report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. For example, the report found that salaries in computer-related occupations were, on average, 17 to 34 percent lower for visa holders.
Criticism of the program has come from both the political right and left. Mr. DeSantis wants reform, but so does left-wing Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. President Trump supported Musk’s views, calling it a “great program” that he has used for his business, but multiple media reports suggest that is not true.
Loophole will ‘destroy careers’, critic says
Perello announced in October 2014 that Disney’s approximately 250 employees would be eliminated from IT jobs and replaced with H-1B workers hired by global consulting firms HCL and Cognizant. He said he was one of the employees who was arrested. The laid-off employees spent the last three months at Disney training their foreign replacements, lured by a “retention bonus” and the prospect of applying for new positions at the company.
But Perello said these new opportunities never materialized for him and many of his colleagues, and he feels betrayed by the company that gave him such good performance reviews.
Perello said that while it is “very profitable” for companies, “this is a business model that is really destroying careers, families and marriages.”
Sarah Blackwell, a Sarasota employment attorney who represented Mr. Perello and other former Disney employees in their firing lawsuits, said there are legal recourse for U.S. workers in similar situations to Mr. Perello. He said that there are almost no
A federal judge ruled in 2016 that Disney and its contractors did not violate visa requirements, rejecting their legal challenges.
Blackwell said using these outsourcing companies is a way in which companies can circumvent visa law protections for U.S. workers and end up hiring lower-wage foreign workers. Said to be one.
Disney is not currently responding to questions regarding the use of H-1B visas. At the time, company officials defended the IT restructuring, saying it spurred innovation, created a net 70 jobs, and some of the affected employees were rehired.
DeSantis said law officers need to be trained to assist immigration officials or face criminal charges.
President Joe Biden’s administration introduced changes Friday aimed at streamlining the H-1B visa approval process, but critics say a broader overhaul is needed.
“We need to fix it and do it in a way that helps Americans and workers here and abroad, not in a way that makes CEOs rich,” Blackwell said.
Florida H-1B Visa
In Florida, people with H-1B visas work in jobs such as software developers, financial analysts, professors, and doctors.
Major state users of the program include Tampa-based staffing firm Kforce, UF, Sunrise-based medical staffing firm Management Health Systems, Plantation-based online pet supply retailer Chewy, and hospital system These include AdventHealth, University of Miami, and Citadel. A hedge fund that recently moved its headquarters from Chicago to Miami.
Global consulting and accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers is listed as Florida’s largest user of H-1B visas, according to federal immigration data.
Talat Rahman, a physics professor at the University of Central Florida who took advantage of the H-1B program, said foreign scholars rely on the program for teaching and research in the United States, particularly in the departments of computer science, engineering, physics and chemistry. It is said that there is From Pakistan to America.
UCF employs 40 workers on H-1B visas, according to federal data. The University of Florida employs approximately 250 workers on H-1B visas.
Rahman said the number of U.S. graduates in many science and technology fields is limited, so American applicants for these academic positions will not be overlooked.
For example, according to the National Center for Science and Technology Statistics, about 60% of computer science Ph.D. graduates from U.S. universities in 2023 were temporary visa holders, rather than citizens or permanent residents.
“This is a country of immigrants, right?” Rahman said. “They’re very skilled people coming in.”
The medical field uses the H-1B visa program to address the shortage of doctors and nurses. AdventHealth is working with local universities to expand its pipeline of health care workers, but it also hires international applicants to fill positions that cannot be filled domestically, hospital spokesman David Breen said. he said.
Nationally, giant technology companies such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook parent company Meta are among the largest recipients of H-1B visas. The list also features a number of lesser-known consulting firms, including Infosys, Cognizant, and Tata, which supply technology talent to companies on a contract basis.
The H-1B program has a cap of 85,000 new visas One year. However, this cap does not apply to some institutions, such as universities and non-profit research institutions, so the actual number of visas issued is higher. Still, demand for the program far exceeds available visas, which are typically awarded through a lottery rather than a merit-based system.
H-1B visas are valid for up to six years. Workers are eligible to apply for green cards, which would allow them permanent residency in the United States, but such a path could be difficult given the backlog in processing applications.
As a result, H-1B visa workers will stay in the U.S. with the benefit of their employers, said Ron Hira, a professor at Howard University who has written extensively on outsourcing and the H-1B visa program.
Sanders, the firebrand senator from Vermont, likened these workers to “indentured servants,” who must find another job within 60 days to remain in the United States if their employment ends.
Mr. Hilla said that even if the next president with an “America First” policy were to enter the White House, it would be difficult to disrupt the current situation. Disney’s layoffs received widespread attention a decade ago, but nothing much changed in Washington, he said.
“It’s really hard to get change,” says Hira. “There are no organized interests in Washington or Tallahassee that represent the interests of these workers. This is all about power and politics.”
