H-1B Whistleblower: Visa Abuse ‘Rampant in Every State’

H-1B visa program whistleblower Jack “Jay” Palmer said the program’s abuse “is rampant in every state and in every city” during an interview Monday on “The Laura Ingraham Show.”

Palmer, who previously worked for the India-based outsourcing and consulting company Infosys, appeared in a special that aired Sunday on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” about the effects of the H-1B visa program. After discovering information indicating Infosys had violated U.S. immigration laws and committed visa fraud, Palmer filed a lawsuit against the company in 2011 in which he accused it of finding “ways to creatively get around the H-1B limitations and process to work the system to increase profits and the value of Infosys’ stock.”

“We did this to ourselves and it’s just — the abuse is rampant in every state and in every city.”

“This [episode of] ’60 Minutes’ is just bringing to the forefront everything that’s been going on,” Palmer said. “You’ve really got to put a stop to this. Our children and our children’s children will have no chance to ever get a good meaningful job — especially in technology.”

Palmer noted the H-1B visa program, which allows American corporations to hire foreign workers, “was designed to bring in the best and brightest and to create jobs.” Instead, the program has been manipulated in many cases to replace American workers with younger, cheaper, foreign workers.

While many American workers in science and technology fields earn $130,00-$140,000 per year after working for a company for 20-25 years, H-1B workers can replace American workers for $40,000-$50,000 a year.

“It’s truly heartbreaking that you have IT workers going from supporting hospitals — and even our government — to waiting tables and losing their houses and going to apartments,” Palmer said. “We did this to ourselves and it’s just — the abuse is rampant in every state and in every city.”

“And [the H-1B workers] don’t even know your job. Most of these H-1B workers, Laura, are 22 and 24 years old,” Palmer added. “And what’s even more appalling is — I’m going to be breaking some evidence in the next 4-6 weeks that shows … the fake resumes that these people are actually using.”

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Palmer said that the H-1B visa program, though initially intended to benefit the country as a whole, has left a disastrous legacy that harms Americans and results in a “skeptical” quality of work.

“It’s all about corporate greed, it’s all about money, and it’s all about not investing in us,” Palmer said. “The quality of work is really skeptical at this point in time. And what’s even more scary — even scarier, is that we’re outsourcing a lot of our data and it’s housed in the cloud in India or housed in the cloud in China. I mean, do you really want our records — our health care records — over there?”

“Our culture right now — our innovative culture — is depressed because they have no hope,” Palmer added. “They cannot go out and get a job.”