2013 Infosys and Tata, two leading offshoring firms, paid computer-systems analysts on H-1B visas $20,000 less than the average annual wage ($91,990) for analysts in Los Angeles that year — despite the legal requirement to pay H-1B employees the “prevailing wage” in an area for their given occupation.

But is there really a dearth of STEM-proficient American workers? (click here) Qualcomm, the San Diego-based cellphone smart-chip producer, announced last week that it plans to lay off 4,500 employees. But just four months ago, Qualcomm was “scrambling” to hire H-1B applicants. Likewise with Microsoft, which announced last year that it would be laying off 18,000 workers and introduced plans for another 7,800 cuts three weeks ago, even as it remains an enthusiastic supporter of the resurrected I-Squared bill co-authored by Marco Rubio earlier this year. That bill would triple the number of H-1B visas to 195,000.

It’s not hard to imagine that Qualcomm, Microsoft, and others hope to follow the Disney model. Late last year, Disney, a company with significant IT interests, laid off 250 workers. They were replaced by H-1B recipients. And, like some 400 workers laid off from Southern California Edison last year, the Disney employees were required to participate in a “knowledge transfer” — i.e., they were forced to train the foreign workers who took their jobs....

...2013 Infosys and Tata, two leading offshoring firms, paid computer-systems analysts on H-1B visas $20,000 less than the average annual wage ($91,990) for analysts in Los Angeles that year — despite the legal requirement to pay H-1B employees the “prevailing wage” in an area for their given occupation....