Fake RIR/PERM job ads in Sacramento Bee - December 17, 2006 - Hewlett-Packard Roseville, Verifone, Key Business Solutions

Last week I alerted you that your Hewlett-Packard help wanted ad was a sham, since it does not represent a bona-fide job opening nor an intent to hire any of the applicants.

Without explanation, you have knowingly defrauded your readers by electing to run the same ad again today.

You have upped the ante, adding fake ads from by Verifone (a division of HP) and Key Business Solutions to the mix - a substantial percent of the Computer Help Wanted in today's Bee are fake ads. (I further predict that these same ads will run exactly one more Sunday within the next 30 days, consistent with PERM requirements.)

Verifone positions for California can be searched here, and applied for on-line. So why doesn't the ad refer people to the website to apply online? Note that the Verifone ad is for two different positions, and the Marketing ad requests "3 years experience in the job offered" - which is a PERM violation, since experience and skilled acquired on the current job cannot be included within the job requirements - the measure is what skills were required to perform the job on the day the H-1b first filled it.

Why do both the HP and Verifone ads say "Must have legal right to work in the U.S."? Because this is among the legal issues of a PERM ad, distinguishing it from H-1b sponsorship.

LCAs for Verifone and Key Business Systems can be searched here - there are clear matches between H-1b positions and the alleged greencard sponsorship represented by these ads. The LCA search also reveals that these companies were hiring H-1bs without first running ads to recruit Americans- (which is of course completely legal under the flawed H-1b program - ads such as these are only run AFTER the position is filled.)

KEY BUSINESS SOLUTIONS LCAs - many sponsored by apparent Indian Director Rajan Gutta 916-646-2080, BS degreed programmers for $45,000 per year, during the peak of the dot-com bust when many Sacramento-area programmers were unable to find work. The H-1B statute permits Indians like Rajan to discriminate against U.S. Citizens and hire exclusively H-1b from his home country, if they so choose.

Can you please clarify your position on help wanted ads? For example, will you authorize our organization to run fake ads for the purpose of building our member contact list? If not, where do you draw the line?

Note that on August 14, 2006, you had ran an Editorial in favor of further streamlining this "fake job ad" greencard process - see below.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14296591p-15149800c.html

Editorial: Our immigrants' exodus

Lament the skills and talent the U.S. loses

Published 12:01 am PDT Monday, August 14, 2006

If Raghu Ballal carries through on his plan to leave the United States, this country will have lost a valuable asset.

The Indian-born engineer is packing for England, to take advantage of that country's Highly Skilled Migrant Program. He would like to stay in the United States, but after almost a decade in this country he still has not been able to get a green card -- the key federal document that would allow him and his wife to live and work in this country permanently.

There is no reason Ballal should be denied a permit. He earned a master's degree in civil engineering from a Texas university in 1999. He has since worked as a civil engineer for an American company under the H-1B temporary visa program that allows highly skilled workers the opportunity to work in this country.

Ballal's company sponsored his application for a green card and permanent residency [BY RUNNING FAKE JOB ADS - KIM]. But the backlog in the nation's overwhelmed immigration bureaucracy is so long, it could be years before he gets any response.

Meanwhile, under the stringent rules of the H-1B program that allows him to stay in this country now, Ballal is barred from seeking a promotion within his own company or changing jobs. He is not unlike an indentured servant.

No wonder he has decided to go to England. There, he could get permanent residence status within weeks and citizenship within two years.

Critics have raised some legitimate problems with the the H-1B program. American engineers complain that it allows U.S. firms to hire cheap foreign labor and keep wages low. There is some evidence to support that criticism, and those issues need to be addressed.

But while those concerns are being addressed, the country cannot afford to allow bureaucratic inertia to deprive us of the talents of people like Raghu Ballal.

Immigrants are America's wealth. They have revitalized entire cities in this nation. They bring skills, a strong work ethic and family values that this country needs. That is what we lose when Raghu Ballal and others like him find it easier to leave America than stay.