Articles Posted in H-1B Visa

Peri Software Solutions Inc and its owner, Saravanan Periasamy, were ordered on December 7 to pay $638,449 in back wages with interest to 67 workers for violating provisions of the Immigration Nationality Act by the US Department of Labor related to the H1-B visa.

Peri Software Solutions was additionally ordered to pay $126,778 in civil money penalties with interest for failure to provide, “notice of the filing of labor condition applications at each place where any H1-B worker was to be employed” as well as filing lawsuits against workers who ended their employment early. As a result of the violations, the company is prohibited from participating in the H1-B for one year.

Deputy administrator of the department’s Wage and Hour Division, Nancy Leppink says, “Peri Software not only took advantage of these workers by not properly compensating them, it also violated the part of the law that provides the greatest protection to the American workforce.”

According to Tyler Cowen, a writer for The New York Times and economics professor at George Mason University, immigration to the US is increasing business activity and therefore creating an increase in jobs. He cites “Immigration, Offshoring and American Jobs” which explains that keeping companies onshore also helps keep low-wage jobs. The study goes on to find an inverse relation between immigration rates and offshoring, as offshoring increases the number of immigrants decrease and vice versa. Immigrant workers actually fill in labor market gaps and are “complementary” to the American business system; this contrasts with common bias that immigrants take away jobs from native US citizens and are detrimental. The study found that Americans and immigrants occupy different areas in the workforce and take different jobs, balancing each other in the labor force. Cowen goes on to explain that we naturally blame others or different groups for problems instead of realizing that machines and technology displace many human workers.

In conclusion, Cowen recommends the sanction of more immigrants coming into the US due to the potential increase in jobs and tax revenue, benefits to Social Security, as well improvement on the country’s overall business.