B2 SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2019 S LATIMES.COM
For Friday, Aug. 23, 2019
Mega Millions
Mega number is bold
11-15-37-54-68—Mega 21
Jackpot:$90 million
California winners per category:
No. of
winners
Amount
of prize(s)
5 + Mega 0 —
5 1 $831,275
4 + Mega 2 $13,947
4 38 $433
3 + Mega 62 $302
3 2,137 $10
2 + Mega 1,914 $10
1 + Mega 14,539 $4
Mega only 34,864 $2
Winning jackpot ticket(s) sold in other
states: None
For Saturday, Aug. 24, 2019
SuperLotto Plus
Mega number is bold
4-6-14-24-45—Mega 21
Jackpot: $7 million
Powerball
Powerball number is bold
5-12-20-21-47—Powerball 1
Jackpot: $50 million
Fantasy Five: 8-10-33-36-38
Daily Four: 9-8-1-9
Daily Three (midday): 9-4-5
Daily Three (evening): 5-5-8
Daily Derby:
(10) Solid Gold
(1) Gold Rush
(12) Lucky Charms
Race time: 1:41.66
Results on the internet:
http://www.latimes.com/lottery
General information:
(800) 568-8379
(Results not available at this number)
Lottery results
SAN DIEGO —Denial
rates for highly skilled
worker visas have quadru-
pled since 2015, a trend that
makes it much harder for
companies that rely on these
workers to find and retain
talent.
According to data from
U.S. Citizenship and Immi-
gration Services, denial
rates for first-time H-1B visa
applicants increased from
6% in fiscal year 2015 to 24%
in fiscal 2018.
And the trend is growing.
Through the first half of fis-
cal year 2019, USCIS denied
33% of initial H-1B visa appli-
cations, data show.
H-1B visas are highly
sought-after work visas for
highly skilled workers such
as computer engineers and
programmers, including by
several California compa-
nies that are among the
country’s most profitable.
Each April, USCIS receives
about 200,000 applications
for 85,000 visas.
There are two types of
H-1B visas — initial applica-
tions for new employees and
continuing applications for
renewals or employees who
change jobs.
The denials increased
during the last year of the
Obama administration but
accelerated under President
Trump as he introduced
new policies he said were in-
tended to protect American
workers by preventing
fraud.
These policies placed
greater scrutiny on applica-
tions and raised the stand-
ards for awarding and re-
newing foreign worker visas,
according to the National
Foundation for American
Policy, a nonpartisan non-
profit that recently analyzed
USCIS’data.
“We had been hearing
that companies had experi-
enced more denials, but un-
til you put the numbers to-
gether, it became clear how
large a change in policy there
had been and how big of an
impact it’s having,” said Stu-
art Anderson, executive di-
rector of the group.
Anderson said the deni-
als hurt companies in two
ways. First, it limits growth
because companies cannothire new employees. Second,
it jeopardizes quality control
because experienced em-
ployees who are denied their
visa renewal have to stop
working.
“And, on a personal level,
it can really have a negative
impact on an organization to
lose people who have been
working there for many
years,” he said.
Some of the country’s
most profitable and well-
known companies have had
more H-1B visa applications
denied.
Microsoft, IBM, Deloitte,
Ernst & Young, Walmart,
Google, Amazon and Face-
book have had their worker
visa denial rates increase
from 2015 through the first
half of 2019, according to data
from USCIS.
Deloitte and Ernst &
Young saw their denial rates
increase by 40% during that
period.
IBM experienced a 30%
increase, JP Morgan Chase
13%, and Walmart and
Microsoft each saw a 12% in-
crease in denial rates.
Google, Facebook and
Apple also experienced in-
creases, albeit less dramatic.
Their denial rates went from
1% in 2015 to about 5% in 2019,
data show.
Ron Hira, a professor at
Howard University who has
been looking at the H-1B visaprogram for years, said this
is the first time since the pro-
gram began 30 years ago
that the government is en-
forcing standards.
Hira pointed to a 2015
scandal in which Southern
California Edison’s Ameri-
can IT workers were laid off
and asked to train H-1B visa
employees who took their
jobs as an example of how
the program is in need of re-
form.
“The H-1B program is rife
with abuse and exploitation,
but prior administrations —
both GOP and Democratic
— essentially rubber-
stamped petitions,” he said.
“I’m sure employers don’t
like the increased scrutiny,
but that doesn’t mean the
government is doing any-
thing wrong.”
In San Diego, Qualcomm
has had 17 guest worker
visas denied in 2019. That is
more than the company had
denied from 2009 to 2017,
data show.
Qualcomm is among the
biggest employers of H-1B
workers in California. The
company routinely employs
hundreds of foreign workers
a year. Therefore the denial
rates, while increasing, are
much lower than the na-
tional average.
The company did not re-
spond to a request for com-
ment.Qualcomm has histori-
cally supported increasing
the cap limit on worker visas,
which was established in the
1990s.
Smaller tech companies
in San Diego experienced
significantly higher denial
rates. Vastek had 29 applica-
tions denied in 2019 and zero
approved.
Other local companies,
such as Sydata, Ellianse and
Sysintelli, had denial rates
above 50%.
None of those companies
responded to a request for
comment.
San Diego immigration
lawyer Jacob Sapochnick
has seen the trend firsthand
the last two years.
“We’ve definitely seen
more denials for small com-
panies,” Sapochnick said.
“Not just San Diego but
across the states.”
IT consulting firms seem
to be receiving greater scru-
tiny in their applications,
Sapochnick said.
USCIS will question
whether the company has
enough work to justify the
hiring or if the jobs being of-
fered are complex enough to
qualify as specialty occupa-
tions.
Sapochnick has also
heard from clients who re-
ceive on-site visits from US-
CIS agents asking questions
about who is working there,what their job titles are and
how much money they earn.
In February 2018, USCIS
published a policy memo
outlining tougher standards
specifically for companies
that hire for “third-party
workplaces” such as IT con-
sulting companies.
“Based on the agency’s
experience administering
the H-1B program, USCIS
recognizes that significant
employer violations — such
as paying less than the
required wage, benching
employees [not paying
workers the required wage
while they wait for projects
or work] and having employ-
ees perform non-specialty
jobs — may be more likely to
occur when petitioners
place employees at third-
party worksites,” the memo
states.
Sapochnick said each de-
nial has real-world conse-
quences. One client was re-
cently denied a continuing
H-1B application. He had
been with the same com-
pany in San Diego for eight
years but had to go back to
Bangladesh after his renew-
al was denied.
His employer helped him
apply for a green card so he
could return after a year,
Sapochnick added.Solis writes for the San
Diego Union-Tribune.Denials of guest
worker visas on
rise, data show
Trend, which began
under Obama, has
sped up under Trump.
By Gustavo Solis
WITH HIS H-1B visa denied, Leo Wang packs up in San Jose in February, looking for work outside the U.S.Ben MargotAssociated Press