[boca]

Just want to share my perspective as an Indian who was in US for 6 years until I came back to India a couple of months back. I am not sure why you think companies can bring folks from other countries (India in your example) at a meagre salary of $25K per year and that too in a managerial capacity. You are directly questioning the work that folks at USCIS do. I was in US on L1B initially, which is different from L1A that you are referring to, and then converted to H1B and I believe I was paid a fair market wage all along. I know there could be exceptions but don't think this can happen at a scale at which you are projecting. Also, I agree that the definition of management can be stretched but don't think the wage parity can escape the authorities.

[exelius]

It absolutely does happen at the scale I'm describing because part of my job is trying to place guys from India on L-1 visas :) I try to be ethical about it (i.e. only bringing the actual team leaders who are acting at least somewhat in a management capacity) but I see some of my less-ethical competitors abusing the L-1 process to an astonishing degree for grunt-level QA and development resources. Also, you only need to prove the "managerial capacity" thing when the visa is initially issued; they're usually good for a few years and they don't check up on what you're doing after the first time.

And I'm not questioning the work that CIS does; I'm just saying that it's very, very difficult to say someone is not working in a managerial capacity based on false documentation. There's no way they can tell false documentation from real documentation. But for L-1 visas there is no salary parity requirement, only a requirement that the company cover all expenses for the employee while they are in the US. So the IT body shops take advantage of this, and it leads to entire divisions of large companies being laid off and replaced by cheap labor.