“H1-B Visa Holders Only”
By Angsuman Chakraborty, Gaea News NetworkWednesday, June 21, 2006
The Programmers Guild, an IT worker interest group, has filed 300 discrimination complaints this year against companies alleged to have posted “H-1B visa holders only” ads on job boards.
These job ads are accused of disregarding the Immigration and Nationality Act, which makes it illegal to discriminate against U.S. workers on the basis of immigration status. Link
Edit: As one commentator quickly pointed out the example given below isn’t correct. Thanks.
A quick web search revealed this ad from Kemma Software:
Kemma Software will consider H1-B visa holders only if they currently hold a visa to be transferred.
I am very much against such practices. The spirit and intent of H1-B is to get foreign help only when the company cannot get help it needs (at the price it wants or can afford) from the local job market. The motives of such (”H1-B visa holders only”) companies are highly questionable.
Update: Interestingly a dice search revealed most companies mentioning H1-B are stating that they cannot sponsor H1-B and very few saying that they will consider it for exceptional candidates only.
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February 17, 2010: 7:51 pm
“The spirit and intent of H1-B is to get foreign help only when the company cannot get help it needs (at the price it wants or can afford) from the local job market.” WTF does this mean??? If some dude in India wants to pull 80 hour weeks for minimal pay to write my software, all power to him. If a US citizen wants that job, he can either put in more hours, work for less, crack open some graduate level CS books, or come up with a new, brilliant algorigthm. Competition’s negative effects may be focused on a few but its positive effects are comparitively massive but spread out among the whole population. |
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November 2, 2007: 11:21 pm
Jon, They are merely saying saying that they are open to transferring H1-B but not to other kind of sponsorship like applying for a new H1-B etc. They are not denying US nationals from applying for the job. |
 Jon |
November 2, 2007: 5:40 pm
Here’s another company ad looking for H1 transfers ONLY. How can you explain this- VMWare is wildly profitable and growing at an amazing rate. What jerks: |
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June 21, 2006: 11:01 pm
Hello Roy, Realizing that you are on the board of Programmers Guild, I am wondering if you could show me some actual examples. –Angsuman |
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June 21, 2006: 5:39 pm
We have thousands of ads specifically stating “h-1b only” - with no ambiguity at all. You can find plenty of “grey area” ones as well, but lack of evidence is certainly not a concern given the sheer volume of it. Companies can only blame typos so many times - and ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law. I would think it laughable that hundreds of companies are making the exact same type of “innocent” typo. |
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June 21, 2006: 11:23 am
Not to mention ignorant and stupid. |
 UsedToBeAnH1B |
June 21, 2006: 10:43 am
The ad you cite is not saying they will only hire H-1B holders. It cleary sas they will only hire a person who has an H1-B if that visa is valid for transfer ( most are not ). Unless the guild has instances where the ad clearly states We will only hire H1-b visa holders they do not have a leg to stand on. |
PP