Sens. Durbin and Sessions Announce Investigation into H-1B Abuse

A bipartisan coalition of Senators announced that the U.S. Department of Labor has launched an investigation of Infosys and Tata, two foreign outsourcing companies. According to Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), these companies imported H-1B guestworkers to replace hundreds of American workers at Southern Cal Edison, one of the country’s largest power companies.

The Senators released the following statement:

We’re pleased to hear that the Labor Department is taking a first step to stanch this tide of visa abuse. A number of U.S. employers, including some large, well-known, publicly-traded corporations, have laid off thousands of American workers and replaced them with H-1B visa holders. To add insult to injury, many of the replaced American employees report that they have been forced to train the foreign workers who are taking their jobs. That’s just plain wrong and we’ll continue to press the Administration to help solve this problem. We look forward to the outcome of the Labor Department’s investigation.

As NumbersUSA reported in April, Sens. Durbin and Sessions led a bipartisan group of ten United States Senators in sending a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, asking them to investigate Southern California Edison’s use of the H-1B guest worker program to replace American workers.

The letter was signed by U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), David Vitter (R-La.), Claire McCaskill (D-MO.), Bill Cassidy (R-LA.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Jim Inhofe (R-Okla).