Two influential US Senators have renewed the campaign against the biggest users of H-1B visa workers in the US, including Indian heavyweights Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and Tata Consultancy Services. They fired off a missive to these companies asking how they employed professional and skilled workers, majority of whom hail from India.

On April 1, when the US Citizenship and Immigration Services began receiving thousands of applicants for the new H-1B visas for fiscal year 2009 that begins on October 1, 2008, Senators Richard Durbin, Illinois Democrat and Charles Grassley, Iowa Republican, sent a questionnaire to the top 25 recipients of approved H-1B visa petitions in 2007.

Last year too, Durbin and Grassley had sent out a similar questionnaire to these companies, but the letter this time was more probing and much more specific. The questions this time were apparently buoyed by the pending recession and pandering to the anti-outsourcing lobby and the increasing decibel against outsourcing that has been resurrected in this election year.

Durbin said in a statement accompanying the questionnaire that 'by the end of the day today, all of the H-1B visas for the year will likely be spoken for.'

But he argued that 'the H-1B program can't be allowed to become a job-killer in America. We need to ensure that firms are not misusing these visas, causing American workers to be unfairly deprived of good high-skilled jobs here at home.'

Grassley said that he had 'no doubt that we'll hear arguments all day as to why the cap on H-1B visas should be raised,' but argued that 'nobody should be fooled.'

He said that 'the bottom line is that there are highly skilled American workers being left behind, searching for jobs that are being filled by H-1B visa holders. It's time to close the loopholes that have allowed this to happen and enact real reform.'

The two lawmakers, who pointed out that their questionnaire is part of an effort to determine is the H-1B visa program is being used for its intended purpose -- to fill a worker shortage for a temporary time period -- made no bones about warning the companies that they need to cooperate and answer the questions to ensure that accurate information is being used to address future reforms of the program.

Last year, Durbin and Grassley raised concerns about the possible misuse of loopholes in the H-1B and L-1 visa programs saying that their investigations had found that the same firms which received a bulk of the H-1B visas also seemed to have cornered much of the L-1 visas, which are intra-company transfer visas where multinational and foreign companies can transfer their managers and other senior employees to their American offices.

At the time, the lawmakers said their inquiries had found that some of the leading Indian companies like TCS, Satyam and Wipro were taking a large number of L-1 visas in addition to the bulk of the H-1B visas, which envisaged them to send workers to the US for extended period of time -- three years and then an extension of another three years, which can then be renewed on an annual basis.

However, H-1B visas unlike the L-1 visas are subject to strict US laws.

At the time, Durbin said that some of these companies 'have hundreds, and in some cases thousands of L visa workers,' and that he 'found it hard to believe that any one company has that many individuals that are legitimately being transferred within a single year.'

"I find it even harder to believe that these L visas are being used appropriately when many of the same companies are some of the largest employers of H-1B visa workers. It's clear that foreign outsourcing firms are abusing the system and we can't let that continue."

Grassley said that 'this information certainly makes one wonder if companies are using the L visa to circumvent the worker protections required under the H-1B program,' and added that he would like to 'know how many American workers these companies hire compared to the number of foreign workers they bring in.'

They introduced the H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, which would require H-1B applicants to make a good faith effort to hire American workers first and would give the Department of Labor greater oversight authority in investigating possible fraud and abuse. This legislation is still pending.

In their letter last week to the 25 companies, Durbin and Grassley voiced concern that "these programs, as currently structured, are facilitating the outsourcing of American jobs."

They acknowledged that "we understand that many employers would like Congress to make more H-1B visas available. However, we must be mindful of the impact importing more foreign workers will have on American workers, especially in light of the recent economic downturn."

Durbin and Grassley wrote, "We believe that before increasing the H-1B cap, Congress must close loopholes in the H-1B and L-1 programs that harm American workers. For example, under current law only employers that employ H-1B visa holders as a large percentage of their US workforce are required to attempt to recruit American workers before hiring a H-1B visa holder."

According to them, "Most companies can explicitly discriminate against American workers by recruiting and hiring only H-1B visa holders."

"Additionally, we are concerned that some companies may be circumventing the requirements of the H-1B visa programs by using other visa programs, such as the L-1, to bring in cheaper foreign labor," the lawmakers said, and added, "While the L-1 visa program allows intercompany transfers to enter the United States, experts have concluded that some companies use the L-1 visa to bypass even the minimal protections for American workers that are in the H-1B program."

Among the laundry list of questions asked included how many H-1B petitions the company had submitted to USCIS and how many of these petitions had been approved in each of the last five fiscal years and in fiscal year 2009.

Also, for each of the last five fiscal years, how many workers the company had hired in the US and outside the US.

The lawmakers also wanted the companies to provide a detailed description of their recruitment process for open positions, including company policies and where they advertised, and whether priority was given to US citizens when filling open positions. And, if good faith efforts were made to recruit American citizens for open positions before recruiting foreign nationals.

Durbin and Grassley also questioned the companies if they would support legislation prohibiting a firm from hiring additional H-1B visa holders if the same employs more than 50 people and more than 50 per cent of its employees were H-1B and L-1 visa holders.

Besides Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and TCS, the other Indian companies to get the questionnaire were Cognizant Tech Solutions, Patni Computer Systems, I-Flex Solutions, Larson & Toubro Infotech Ltd, and Mphasis Corporation.

The 16 American companies and institutions to which the questionnaire was sent, included Microsoft Corporation, US Technology Resources, Intel Corporation, Accenture, Cisco Systems Ltd, Ernst & Young, Deloitte & Touche, University of Illinois at Chicago, Google Inc, Prince George's County Public Schools, JP Morgan Chase and Motorola.