Southern Tech Workers

Over the past few years, many American tech companies have relocated their operations from states like California and New York to places across the South, most notably Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia. Unfortunately, despite the abundance of homegrown talent in these states, the executives running these companies have chosen to hire predominantly foreign nationals on visa programs such as H-1B and STEM OPT. I observed this firsthand when I worked at @Fidelity in North Carolina. By the end of my time there, the opportunistic labor arbitrage and Indian nepotism I witnessed had resulted in roughly 70% of my business unit’s org chart consisting of Indian nationals during a deteriorating job market for Americans. This motivated me to start NC Tech Workers to advocate on behalf of Americans in North Carolina, where I lived, who were disproportionately affected and alienated in the job market by these programs. These visa programs have terraformed areas around the Research Triangle Park, such as Morrisville and Cary. I saw this change myself in North Carolina. The same thing has happened across the South, with places like Frisco and Irving in Texas, Johns Creek and South Forsyth in Georgia, and areas across Northern Virginia becoming unrecognizable. Our homes are being fundamentally transformed by these programs in a way we never asked for or voted for, all because our government allows American companies to take advantage of the South’s lower cost of living and business-friendly laws by using visa programs to commoditize labor against the interests of the American people. This is why, after a long break while I focused on a new job and moved back to my home state of Louisiana, I’ve decided to expand my advocacy efforts to represent the entire South. We all share the same struggle. I’ve been working on some things behind the scenes that I’m excited to share soon.

Here's an observation about H1Bs you don't hear: Silicon Valley VCs (one of the right's favorite new donors) likely bear a lot of the responsibility for the H1B scourge. Once you capture your customers and scale your startup to a unicorn valuation, but before you are profitable and public, H1Bs are an easy way to scale fast while hiding the true cost of engineering. Luckily, by the time they screw up the product, your customers are already hooked and you've already exited. That's why 66% of SV's workforce is foreign-born! BONUS: Huge mature corporations copy your tactics and think they are adopting "start-up" sensibilities, screw up their products, and make future opportunities for you. Plus, all your Director and VP-level Indian engineers can go be CTO's and founders, opening a pipeline for more H1Bs everywhere.

1/10 Dallas-Fort Worth added no net engineering jobs for a DECADE. There were 40,000 engineering jobs in 2012. And roughly 40,000 in 2022. Meanwhile, OPT guest workers in those same jobs doubled. The "shortage" story doesn't survive contact with the data. 🧵

@ValerieFoushee This is a disgraceful sellout to big tech. American STEM graduates at UNC and Duke, who you are supposed to represent, can't get jobs because companies in RTP don't have to pay FICA taxes when they hire foreigners on STEM OPT. You should be primaried for this betrayal.

Seeing some anger on this bill from Republicans. No one is trying to stop Americans from getting advanced STEM degrees! Except for Trump who gutted the Department of Education, worked to prevent the cancellation of loan debt, and is destroying the job market.

BAY AREA STEM WORKERS PLEASE READ Hello! My name is Steven Edginton and I am a journalist from GB News, a British TV network. I am heading to the Bay Area next week to shoot a documentary on H1B visas and outsourcing American jobs. I'm looking to interview people whose jobs have been outsourced, or have found it difficult to get work because of H1B applicants/migration or who have worked with migrants who undercut wages/do a worse job than Americans would do (e.g. don't speak English well, low skilled). If anyone is willing to chat on camera I would love to interview them (we could do this anonymously if helpful). Email: Steve.edginton@gbnews.uk Phone: 202.701.5428

“I graduated college seven years ago and I remember in high school them telling us, ‘learn to code and you’ll have a good job,'” Joseph Ibrahim, an unemployed tech worker based in Florida, told the DCNF. “Well, it turns out they outsource the coding jobs also, not just the manufacturing jobs.” Ibrahim got a degree in information systems, business analytics and information systems, but has been struggling to find work since April. Unlike many of the tech workers who spoke to the DCNF, he had no problem being identified by his full name. “What are they gonna do?” Ibrahim asked. “They’re already not hiring me.” “You know, if I went into college and on the pamphlet, there were like, ‘pros and cons of studying something in computer science: you may have to train your replacement at some point in your career,’ I would have never studied this,” he said." (Link in the replies.)

A Manhattan federal jury on Monday awarded $8.4 million to a New York University professor and former Cognizant Technology Solutions employee who claimed he was fired in retaliation for alleging the information technology company engaged in systematic hiring bias. . . . Jean-Claude Franchitti said he was fired in 2016 from a $350,000-a-year job after a decade at New Jersey-based Cognizant. He claimed it was retaliation for asking questions about the company's alleged bias toward hiring workers from India as part of a "cheap labor" profit model. The award for Franchitti consisted of $4.2 million in back pay, or lost wages, and $4.2 million in punitive damages. The jury declined to award compensation for front pay, or future earnings, or for an emotional distress claim. The trial revealed a dearth of written communications from Franchitti complaining about Cognizant's alleged strategy to keep a cheap labor pipeline open. His lawyers said Franchitti kept concerns verbal because he knew he was walking a "fine line" and wanted to find fixes diplomatically. Franchitti is pleased with the verdict, his lawyer, Daniel Kotchen, told Law360 via email. "The jury sent a strong message that violating employees' rights will not be tolerated," he said. (Link to full article in the replies.)

There was an American student who was denied from Duke so that a foreigner could take his spot

Well done @JoshuaSchriver! The witness is either genuinely clueless or willfully ignorant that it is legal immigration destroying job opportunities and career paths of our white-collar professional workers. Labor is not immune from the laws of supply and demand. Visa programs such as the H-1B and L-1, as well as work authorization programs such as STEM OPT, OPT, CPT, and H-4 EAD, incentivize employers to hire cheaper and more compliant foreigners over American workers.

I regretfully watched the video. The entire video is falsely premised on the idea that H-1B is a meritocratic program and that immigrants are dominating the tech industry because they are outcompeting Americans on a level playing field. I find it bizzare that as a supposed leftist he would support a program that benefits the bottom line of corporations at the expense of ordinary American workers, brushing off legitimate concerns with the classic corporate manufactured H-1B sympathizing talking points. The video was also littered with clear racial resentment towards White Americans and an ingratitude towards the people who gave him and his parents a first world standard of living they never would have had in India. So it's very telling that you would endorse such a video.

In 2015, Disney called 250 IT workers into a meeting. They thought they were getting bonuses. Disney told them they were being replaced by workers flown in from India on H-1B visas, and if they didn't spend the next 90 days training those replacements, they'd lose their severance. Leo Perrero testified before Congress about it. Appeared on 60 Minutes. "Someone was flown in from another country to sit at my same desk and take over what I was doing. It was the most humiliating thing I've ever gone through in my life." Two workers sued Disney, HCL, and Cognizant for colluding to illegally displace American workers. Courts dismissed it. Disney Magic.

@Cloudwatch199 x.com/nctechworkers/…

Raja Krishnamoorthi — Princeton, Harvard Law, 4 terms in Congress, $30M raised — is losing the Illinois Senate primary tonight. An Indian American did everything right and it still wasn't enough. Why?

Join us for pizza and politics as we welcome Executive Director Kevin Lynn from the Institute for Sound Public Policy! We'll be discussing the impact of H-1B and other visa programs on jobs for American graduates. See you Wednesday! @thencamekevin @USTechWorkers @ifspp @PFIRorg

Brothers Bhaskar and Arun Savani, who ran a visa fraud scheme and built a multimillion-dollar criminal enterprise, face prison sentences of over 400 years after their convictions this month thanks to a multiagency investigation that included ICE @HSI_HQ. The Savani brothers: —Filed false H-1B visa applications and petitions to exploit foreign workers who were dependent on the Savani Group —Defrauded Medicaid of more than $30M —Conspired to place prototype dental implants not cleared by the FDA in human patients without their consent —Laundered money through a complex web of Savani Group corporate entities’ bank accounts —Fraudulently claimed personal expenses as business expenses and failed to pay taxes “Today’s convictions send a clear message that those who build criminal enterprises on the backs of vulnerable patients, exploited workers, and U.S. taxpayers will be held to account,” said ICE @HSIPhiladelphia Special Agent in Charge Eric McLoughlin.

Why is X suspending Americans at the behest of these foreign terrorists? @elonmusk dr repatriator is one of several incredible accounts exposing the fraud in our immigration system. Needs to be fixed immediately. Unban @DrRepatriator

NC State is the biggest user of H-1B visas in the University of North Carolina System, with over 200 in 2023 Fun fact: H-1B applications from universities get to skip the lottery process, and do not count towards the quotas

@War4theWest @CapitalOne @Cloudwatch199 @RajeevSharma00 @IAACouncil @SloanRachmuth @HashemMelech048 @stephsvox @MarioNawfal @Bushra1Shaikh @MargoinWNC @Yael4Hanover

@CapitalOne IT is dominated by Indians and they openly discriminate against Americans in hiring. Read this horrifying story by a young American who majored in computer science. He's ready to give up on the field. Indians openly discriminate against him. The rest of the thread on Reddit is filled with stories by other Americans who interviewed with CapitalOne - I've linked the thread in the comments. This is COMMON in the U.S. now Read and Weep

@MitraHispana @SamuelKellum @DanielDiMartino I'm a principal engineer at 25 you ignorant bitch. If I couldn't compete, I wouldn't have ever been hired out of college or seen hiring practices from the inside blatantly favoring Indians over Americans. Fuck you for gaslighting Americans being fucked over by this system.

@SamuelKellum @DanielDiMartino You’re just mad you can’t compete 😂

Florida and Texas will lose great talent to neighboring states. It will be a great experiment to see play out, but with negative health and economic consequences to Texas and Florida, who will also lose residents and thus electoral power, as a result.

@info_maiden Our grocery stores look like this because our politicians allow "American" companies in the Research Triangle Park like @Fidelity and @IBM to replace American tech workers with a cheaper supply of endless indentured foreign labor.

Just the local Apex, North Carolina Costco in the heart of H-1B central. Indians have flooded this area, as well. Filled with foreign faces and aisles claimed by jalebi, soanpapdi, and Bikaji sweets. Visa imports have replaced local populations all over the country. It's literally hitting everywhere.