Woodside visa fraudster cuffed

From Sunnyside Post:

A Woodside woman has been charged with visa fraud for filing false documents to get Filipino nationals work visas, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Rena Beduya Avendula, 50, who owned Woodside-based Professional Place & Recruitment Inc. (PPRI), would submit fraudulent documents claiming that her clients would be employed in “specialty occupations,” therefore qualifying for H-1B work visas, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Avendula is charged with five counts of visa fraud and with conspiring to defraud the U.S. by bringing in undocumented immigrants. The scheme allegedly took place from October 2009 through February 2015.

The NY dairy farmer's conundrum

From NBC:

Dairy farms in New York are relying on workers in the country without documentation. Pablo Gutierrez reports on the issue.

This is a very interesting report. On the one hand, the farmers say no Americans are willing to do this work. To some extent that's probably true, but would they offer a wage that would be fair to an American? Probably not. They want to keep the cost of milking down, so they exploit undocumented labor by paying them poorly and forcing them to work extended hours. Yet they claim they want see a change in the Visa program which allows the workers to stay legally. If that happens, the workers will have to at least be paid minimum wage, if not a living wage as courts have ordered in the past. And then the cost of producing milk goes up and farms go under. We've created quite a mess in this country.

US being screwed out of jobs

From the Daily News:

Paragons of American corporate citizenship are perverting an immigration program that was designed to boost the country’s high-tech economy.

The U.S. Department of Labor has let businesses as prominent as Walt Disney World and Toys R Us use a special category of work-related visas not only to cut costs but to send jobs overseas.

President Obama wants immigration reform? It’s never going to happen this way.

So-called H-1B visas are intended to admit into the U.S. highly educated, highly skilled workers whose talents are desperately needed. For example, a company may apply to bring computer engineers from abroad if it cannot find enough of them in America. That, at least. was the theory.

Now, it turns out that consultants that specialize in helping companies move operations overseas are securing most of the 85,000 H-1B visas issued annually — and are using them to help eliminate jobs wholesale.

With calculating cruelty, the consulting firms obtain visas and bring workers in to copycat the tasks of U.S. workers slated, whether they know it or not, for the unemployment line.

When the knowledge download is done, the visa workers fly back overseas, often to India, to train their countrymen to join the company payroll at a much cheaper rate.

Human trafficking mobsters plead guilty

From the Daily News:

Two wiseguys pleaded guilty Friday to extortion charges related to a racketeering scheme that the feds say stocked mob-controlled New York strip clubs with smuggled eastern European women, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara announced.

Alphonse Trucchio, a Gambino family capo, and Christopher Colon, a Gambino associate, pleaded guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to extorting two Queens strip clubs, Perfection in Woodside and Rouge in Maspeth, Bharara said.

Trucchio faces eight to 10 years in prison and Colon six to eight years when they are sentenced May 17.

Judge Richard Berman revoked their bail following their pleas of guilty.

The two were among 20 suspects busted last November in what prosecutors said was a scheme by the Mafia and the Russian mob to import women from Russia and neighboring countries into New York to work as strippers.

Billionaires want 12 million undocumented to be legalized

From NBC 4:

Seeking to reframe immigration reform as a solution to stimulating the economy, Mayor Bloomberg and the CEOs of several major corporations are pushing for a path to legal status for all undocumented immigrants in the US.

The group announced it will lobby to overhaul immigration laws that keep some of the most brilliant international minds from contributing to US businesses. The new coalition, dubbed "Partnership for a New American Economy" was announced by Bloomberg and News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch, the Australian media mogul who became a naturalized U.S. citizen, this morning.

"If you want to solve the unemployment problem in America, you have to open the door to immigrants who will come here and create businesses. When the tide comes in, everybody’s boat rises and we need more immigrants, not less," Bloomberg said Thursday morning as he stood in Manhattan's largest original retail outlet, Forever 21 in Times Square, developed by immigrants..

Bloomberg says too many technology companies in particular are having trouble recruiting the best and brightest workers because getting a visa is too difficult. He often complains that the brightest students from around the world come to NYC to study, only to return to work in other countries because they can't get green cards.

On the lower end of the economic ladder, the coalition will press for citizenship for the millions of undocumented people who could become taxpaying employees working in hotel, domestic and agricultural jobs that American workers are less likely to take.

The Mayor's high profile focus on the national immigration issue will undoubtedly resurrect speculation that he's exploring a run for president.

Another vulnerability exposed

From the NY Post:

They come here...with dreams of seeing America, looking for more permanent work, or making new friends, but instead find themselves without a job or a place to live, several students told The Post. Others drift to the more seedy side of Long Island, stripping or dealing drugs to make ends meet.

Even the successful can pose a problem, however. Many — no one knows how many, but it could number in the hundreds each year — stay in the US long after their visas expire. Critics say that’s because there’s little to no oversight of such programs.

“The inability of the federal government to identify, track, and remove foreign nationals who overstay their visas has created a serious security vulnerability that has, and will continue to be, exploited by terrorists,” said Rep. Peter King (R-LI) during a House hearing on the issue in March.

Lawmakers urged the Obama administration to restore the $22 million in the 2011 budget needed to create a centralized system to track visa overstays. The “biometric exit system” involves the collection and analysis of fingerprints and other data that is checked against a database of suspected criminals and illegal immigrants.

But for now, the system remains in limbo — and more temporary visa holders arrive every day.

Foreigners imported to work on city contracts

From the NY Post:

While the city vows to save and create jobs for recession-ravaged New Yorkers, one of its biggest contractors is importing techies from India, instead of hiring local computer nerds.

IBM won a $1.9 million contract with the Department of Finance to analyze its old main databases so they can be improved, but the company has transported "consultants" from Mumbai and other parts of India to do most of the work.

At least 17 employees hired by an IBM subsidiary in India have worked in New York since October, inspecting the city's computer systems, which hold property and other tax records, insiders said.

"It was a dream come true," said Sunny Amin, 25, who traveled from his Mumbai home to the Big Apple -- his first US visit.

It could not be learned whether IBM pays its Mumbai recruits the same rates, though watchdogs say US firms hire thousands of workers from India because they come cheap. IBM did not return calls.

But Amin's fortune means US citizens get shut out of well-paying jobs, critics charge.

"It's like a slap in the face," said Robert Ajaye, president of Local 2627, a union of city-employed computer specialists. "We have people in house who could do this job."

Instead, he said, some city staffers have had to "translate" for Indian techies lacking English skills.