I've often wondered - I know there are requirements for them to "post" those openings before they get the visa - if there is a way for "concerned citizens" to challenge them through the department of labor or something... we could make a website that would let professional engineers volunteer their spare time go down the list of WiPro's (or whatever the big offender companies are) visa requests and call BS on them.

What a joke! This is what it says on the Dept. of Labor site:

Who enforces the requirement for offering jobs to qualified U.S. applicants? Questions or complaints concerning any non-selection should be referred to the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC), which also administers several statutes concerning employment discrimination based on national origin, citizenship status, and immigration document abuse. OSC may be contacted at 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Wahington, DC 20530, 1-800-255-7688 and http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/osc/.

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/osc/ == "PAGE NOT FOUND"

Fuck this.

For anyone looking for the correct link, here it is : https://www.justice.gov/crt/office-special-counsel-immigrati...

But why just google the name of the office and find the correct link when I can throw my hands up and say "fuck this" on a pseudo-anonymous internet forum?

Maybe you missed the part where they cared so little about what they were supposed to be enforcing that the link on a federal website dedicated to enforcement was a dead link. That you can use a third-party search engine to find the site is entirely beside the point that you shouldn't have to.

I apologize, I didn't realize how much of an injustice a 404 could be.

They just have to post it at their place of business, so the public wouldn't have access to them. This is unlike the EB3 process where a job posting has to be made public as part of PERM.

Actually, you're wrong according to: https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/FactSheet62/whdfs62O... for "H1-B Dependent Employers"

"Such employers must take good faith steps to recruit U.S. workers for any job for which they seek H-1B workers."

From your own link:

> Either external or internal to the employer’s workforce; or

So no, no public posting is required. It could all be internal recruiting and still pass the bar for H1-B. "Good faith" is also a very broad definition so it wouldn't surprise me that a very minimum amount of work is considered within the scope of that.

Local paper postings or physical job boards may be enough to qualify for good faith efforts, especially if there's legal precedence defining just how much effort they have to expend.

My understanding is that often the "public" job postings are posted to places where no qualified American tech worker would look, like newspaper classified sections.

That wouldn't work.

I'm sure these companies would be more than happy to hire an American who responds to their job request if that American was willing to work for 50k.

Wrong. The applicant company has to prove that the salary they are offering is at/above industry standard. (Let's not debate whether they actually do that - and what they might do to skirt that... that's the point I was originally making: we should submit formal complaints about those things... or, to wit: "you don't have a right to complain about something if you don't try to fix it.")

Are there not regions of the US where a $50k tech job for, say, a 30 year old programmer is a good salary?

Maybe the crooked law firms who facilitate everything deserve some scrutiny here too.

Case in point: How to post fake job ads to shirk the visa rules, courtesy of Cohen & Grigsby. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

Probably because the large ones can follow the letter of the law. The smaller shops are probably the ones which are rally sloppy with their work. Just turning in paperwork has worked in the past and so they feel it will work again -- just procedural but sloppy, is my guess.

I guess if people are really bothered by a few unscrupulous employers abusing the system, there is nothing preventing someone from building an app to shame or report the employers to authorities who could fine these places. Maybe cut a deal to get a slice of the fine for every good lead. Gamify it so those who produce credible leads are weighted over those who want to cry wolf or are on a vendetta, etc.

Well, this list is "willful violators". I'm pretty sure the body shops that "abuse" the system are well within the letter of the law. I don't approve of what they do, but if it's legal then it's legal. Blame the politicians, blame the government. If you don't like it, change the law, change the system. As long as it's legal and a profitable business they will keep on doing what they're doing.

It's not sad it represents the political reality of employment in the US. It basically shows that these people don't spent any or enough money lobbying the government and is a wake up call for them to become more politically involved.