Laid-off American professionals, who say they were replaced with foreign H-1B visa workers imported from India, scored a $4.65 million settlement against their former employer last week, Indian outsourcing firm Larsen & Toubro Infotech (LTI).
LTI announced the multi-million-dollar settlement with Americans who had filed a lawsuit against the firm after they said they were fired and replaced with foreign H-1B visa workers from India.
According to the initial lawsuit filed by Markus Meyenhoffer and Andrew Ragland, joined by hundreds of other laid-off Americans, LTI executives allegedly deployed a “four-pronged policy and practice of discrimination” specifically designed to favor foreign H-1B visa workers from India with little-to-no experience over qualified Americans.
The lawsuit detailed the alleged policy:
First, LTI allegedly maintains an “inventory” of “visa ready” workers from India to fill positions at the company by petitioning the federal government’s lottery program to obtain a large amount of H-1b visas, and preferences hiring from this pool of applicants over U.S. citizens and visa-ready individuals not from South Asia (in particular, India). [Emphasis added]
…
Second, LTI’s internal and third-party recruiters in the United States disproportionately select South Asian and Indian applicants located in the United States over non-South Asian, non-Indian applicants located in the United States, even if applicants are less qualified. [Emphasis added]
Third, LTI promotes South Asian, Indian, visa holders at disproportionately high rates, in particular by giving these workers higher scores on their quarterly and annual employee appraisals. [Emphasis added]
Fourth, and finally, LTI terminates non-South Asian, non-Indian, and non-visa holders at disproportionately higher rates, in part because these workers are relegated to the “bench” more often and then are not staffed on more projects. [Emphasis added]
In particular, the lawsuit alleged that “while 12 percent of the United States’ IT industry is South Asian, 95 percent or more of LTI’s workforce is South Asian and is primarily composed of non-citizens from India.”
Over a decade ago, LTI was accused of H-1B visa fraud.
White Collar Workers of America, via Twitter, posted how despite the claims against LTI, the firm continues to import thousands of foreign H-1B visa workers for white-collar American tech positions.
For years, Breitbart News has chronicled the abuses against white-collar American professionals as a result of the H-1B visa program. There are about 650,000 H-1B visa foreign workers in the U.S. at any given moment. Americans are often laid off in the process and forced to train their foreign replacements, as highlighted by Breitbart News.
Nearly all H-1B visa reforms imposed by former President Trump have been reversed by President Joe Biden. Last year, for example, Biden allowed corporations that had been denied foreign H-1B visa workers by the Trump administration to reapply.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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