As those in the H-1B nonimmigrant visa category continue to be plagued under the Donald Trump administration‘s immigration crackdown, a post on the anonymous and professional community Team Blind has redirected foreign nationals’ attention to what it called “PERM sabotage.”
Here, PERM process refers to Permanent Labor Certification, which as per the US Department of Labor, allows a US employer to hire a foreign worker to work in the country on a permanent basis. In most cases, the employer must obtain a certified labor certification application from the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration before submitting a petition to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
For this to go through, the Labor Department must guarantee to the USCIS not enough US “workers able, willing, qualified, and available to accept the job opportunity in the area of intended employment and that employment of the foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed US workers.”
‘H-1B crisis’ highlighted in viral post
According to the recently shared viral expression, a Microsoft-affiliated professional shed light on ‘Jobs.Npw,’ a job board posting tech jobs being advertised across department to test labor market conditions for those on the H-1B visa in the US. The aforementioned website appears to have gain quite the traction on social media platform X as well in the recent past.
Going by the handle @JobsNowPR, the account’s bio on X reads: “Jobs.No is your gateway to hidden job postings BIG COMPANIES DON”T WANT YOU TO SEE! As featured in Newsweek.”
The techie sounding the alarm on the page further shared that its SNS account had just 5,000 followers last month. However, in a matter of few weeks, its followers have gone over 21,000. At the time of writing, the page’s following-count had surged even past 22,000. The user observed how Jobs.Now’s posts go viral on social media on a near-daily basis, with even notable Republican influencers amplifying them further.
“The website even boasts about making H1Bs worried and proudly claims to have helped users apply for over 35K H1B jobs,” the Team Blind user said of Americans allegedly taking over positions reserved for people who have been granted their US employment visa for performing services in a specialty occupation.
“As a result, HR departments are being flooded with applications for H1B positions they advertise by thousands of Americans, often fake resumes,” they added. “This has created a big crisis for Indians H1Bs due to a massive unexpected spike in labor market test failures, causing huge visa uncertainties and layoff fears.”
The same backlash raging over the H-1B visa on X ensued in the comments section of Team Blind. One replied, “Americans applying for American jobs is not sabotage.” Another said, “American jobs should be first and foremost for Americans. Other countries can use their own talent to build up their own industries.” On the contrary, a third user responded, “I have no problem with this if they actually have the intention of taking the job. Some people are applying with no intention.”
Someone straight up resorted to calling out H-1B visas for aiding “the theft of American jobs.” Similarly, another person wrote, “America is not an Indian jobs program. We don’t exist for Indian nationals benefit,” asking for the system to be reformed instantly.
H-1B petitioners complain about missing out on the PERM process
The original poster, on the other hand, took it upon themselves to share instances of heartbroken H-1B petitioners voicing their dismay about losing out on jobs across online forums. They backed their concerns with screenshots of SNS posts, with multiple users suggesting their PERM process was paused. Redditors also red-flagged the same issue, with one even disclosing that their H-1B’s validity was set to expire soon, and now more bad news greeted them as they’d even failed their market test.
“The HR did not take any other interview than the initial one and decided there are people to do my job,” they shared. Yet another divulged that they were recently informed by their company’s immigration attorney that their PERM process was being paused. “The stated reason – during the recruitment phase, they received a high volume of applicants, which makes its unable to file Perm for this role,” they wrote on Reddit.
Meanwhile, the currently pinned tweet on the controversial Jobs.Now page on X says the people behind it are “tired of seeing companies hire H1Bs for ordinary jobs that Americans could do.” Another similar post, as highlighted on Team Blind, reads, “We’ve got the H1Bs worried! They know we won’t let their company hide their jobs from the millions of eager American workers anymore! Keep applying!”
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