Then there are stories about how U.S. workers are treated. Time and again,
we hear about how U.S. workers are being laid off and forced to hire their
replacements, many of whom are not truly skilled. This is the case with
Southern California Edison, a utility company that started laying off 500
American workers from its “IT” department last August. The company
replaced them with foreign H-1B workers. The company opted to lay off
Americans and instead contract that work out to two overseas-based IT
consulting companies, which also happen to be some of the largest users of H
-1B visas. In 2013, one of the two IT companies paid $34 million in a civil
settlement after allegations of systemic visa fraud and abuse, but was not
prohibited from continuing to petition for H-1B workers.