The H-1B Scam: How American Jobs Got Sold Out One Visa at a Time

In theory, the H-1B visa program was designed to help American companies hire highly skilled foreign workers for specialized roles they couldn’t fill domestically. In practice, it’s become something much darker — a legally sanctioned pipeline for undercutting American wages, displacing qualified domestic talent, and creating an entire class of indentured tech labor beholden not to opportunity, but to corporate obedience.

Let’s call it what it is: a trap. Not just for American workers, but increasingly for the H-1B workers themselves.

The Numbers Lie

Every fiscal year, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) makes 85,000 H-1B visas available — 65,000 for regular applicants and 20,000 for those with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions. That sounds like a drop in the bucket compared to the size of the U.S. labor force.

But that number is misleading. Because H-1B visas are issued for three years and renewable for another three, the actual number of H-1B holders working in the U.S. at any given time is closer to 600,000 to 700,000, and that’s not even counting the tens of thousands more on Optional Practical Training (OPT) or other temporary work authorizations who eventually transition into H-1Bs.

These workers are disproportionately clustered in tech, finance, and STEM fields. In cities like San Jose, Bellevue, and Austin, they’re not the exception — they are the workforce. And the companies benefiting from this influx aren’t startups struggling to compete. They’re Fortune 500 firms and major government contractors.

The Cost of Corporate Convenience

The H-1B program creates a perverse incentive structure for corporations. Why pay a U.S. citizen $130,000 when you can bring in an H-1B worker for $85,000 — and keep them on a short leash while you’re at it?

That leash is the key to the system. H-1B workers can’t easily change jobs. If they’re laid off, they’ve got 60 days to find another sponsor or they’re gone. That means less bargaining power, less workplace pushback, and an overwhelming pressure to comply with everything from unpaid overtime to unethical conduct.

In short, they’re perfect for companies who value control over competence.

For U.S. workers, the damage is even more profound. Even when they’re not directly replaced, they face wage stagnation, career stagnation, and a hiring bias that quietly favors cheaper, more compliant labor pools.

It’s not just anecdotal. Multiple studies — including research by the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Immigration Studies — have found that the H-1B program suppresses wages in tech and related fields, often by as much as 15%–30% compared to what would prevail in a free labor market.

Case in Point

Take the case of a mid-level systems analyst in Arizona who was asked to train his own H-1B replacement from Infosys — someone who would ultimately take over his job at half the pay. He wasn’t fired immediately; instead, he was offered a severance package on the condition he didn’t speak to the media. Multiply this by thousands and you have the real story behind America’s hollowed-out middle class in tech.

Outsourcing in Reverse

Many of the biggest users of the H-1B program are not American companies. They’re offshore outsourcing firms — Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant — that import workers, train them in U.S. systems, and then replace entire departments before offshoring the operation back to India or elsewhere.

This isn’t a bug. It’s a business model.

The irony? These firms are now managing U.S. government IT infrastructure, including for agencies like the IRS and Department of Labor — the very bodies responsible for enforcing labor laws.

If you were looking to design a system that erodes national labor sovereignty and outsources core institutional functions to foreign-run entities, it would look almost exactly like this.

What About the Workers?

None of this is to disparage the H-1B workers themselves. Most are competent, hardworking people trying to build a better life. But they’re caught in a system that uses them as pawns — and when it no longer needs them, it drops them just as fast.

And here’s the part rarely acknowledged in mainstream discourse: a growing number of H-1B workers don’t want to stay. Burned out, disillusioned, and trapped in years-long green card queues, many are now returning to India or seeking better opportunities in Canada, Australia, or Europe.

In the long run, this doesn’t just harm American workers — it undermines America’s appeal to global talent. The country becomes a meat grinder, not a destination.

Political Cowardice and Bipartisan Failure

Both major parties have blood on their hands.

Republicans love to rail against “illegal immigration,” but when it comes to corporate donors benefiting from H-1Bs, they’re suddenly silent. In fact, some of the most aggressive expansion efforts of the visa cap came under Bush-era policies — and plenty of GOP-aligned think tanks still defend the program under the guise of “free markets.”

Democrats, meanwhile, cloak their support in the language of diversity and inclusion. But importing foreign labor to drive down tech wages while graduates from UC Berkeley and Georgia Tech drive Ubers and deliver DoorDash isn’t inclusive — it’s predatory.

It’s worth noting that many tech oligarchs pushing for H-1B expansion also bankroll Democratic campaigns. They speak fluent social justice while building companies on the back of cheap, compliant labor they never have to promote, accommodate, or unionize.

Mid-Career Carnage

If you’re a U.S. citizen over 35 trying to compete in a field saturated with H-1Bs, good luck. Older tech workers often find themselves screened out not because they lack skills, but because they demand higher pay, better benefits, and aren’t afraid to push back.

There’s a reason age discrimination complaints are rising in tech — and a reason so many mid-career workers either pivot to adjacent fields or leave altogether.

And here’s the dirty secret: companies don’t need to prove they couldn’t find a qualified American worker to hire an H-1B. The Labor Condition Application (LCA) process only requires they offer a “prevailing wage,” and even that can be gamed through selective job postings, geographic offsets, or lowballing the job tier in the official classification.

This dynamic isn’t limited to tech. Similar age-based filtering is emerging in pharma, engineering, and even finance. In these fields too, H-1Bs or temporary workers are often preferred for their lower costs and greater “flexibility” — which is corporate-speak for silent compliance. These sectors increasingly mirror the same throwaway culture: extract, replace, discard. What used to be career ladders have become revolving doors.

So What Now?

Fixing the H-1B program isn’t impossible, but it will require political will, regulatory teeth, and a break from donor-class capture.

Some ideas that have been floated (and shelved):

• Ban outsourcing firms from using H-1Bs altogether.
• Cap the percentage of H-1B workers at any one firm.
• Require public job postings and genuine U.S. applicant consideration.
• Tie H-1B sponsorship to proven local hiring failures, not blanket availability.
• Audit wage compliance regularly — and heavily fine violators.
• Expedite green cards for those already here and eliminate the “per-country” cap that traps Indian workers in 10+ year queues.

But until some combination of these reforms is made law, the program will continue to function as a pressure valve for companies unwilling to pay market wages — and a trapdoor for qualified American professionals trying to make a living on their own soil.

Final Thoughts

Immigration policy isn’t just about who gets in. It’s about what happens to the people already here — and whether our systems reward exploitation over innovation, obedience over autonomy, and profit over principle.

The H-1B visa system as it currently stands rewards all the wrong things.

It’s no wonder public trust in corporate America is at historic lows. People see the game for what it is: a rigged labor market masquerading as meritocracy. The next time you hear a CEO talk about a “talent shortage,” ask yourself: is it really a shortage — or just a refusal to pay Americans what they’re worth?

Unless something changes, the H-1B program will continue doing exactly what it was quietly redesigned to do: supply cheap labor to multinational giants while cannibalizing the very workforce the American dream was built to protect.