United States (ECWd) –
Updated: 10-13-2026
UPDATE:
Quote from Andrew Garrett, Garrett Discovery: “When we first began examining the practices of certain IT contractors, it quickly became clear what they were doing. Soon afterward, I was contacted by Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell’s office. Before long, the Attorney General’s office sent investigators to work alongside Garrett Discovery, and together we gathered an extensive amount of information about how these contractors operated. They were conducting hundreds of millions of dollars in business through no-bid contracts.
This was made possible through intergovernmental agreements, which are not subject to the same rules as the Modern Procurement Code. These agreements allowed companies not only to bring in foreign labor, but also to send American jobs overseas, including union jobs. We also found that many of these IT contracting companies were making large campaign contributions to legislators and this was allowed because there is no direct contract with the state.
In Illinois, State Representative Dwight Kay spent years trying to expose these practices. The idea that a company can win a contract in one state and then use that state’s employees, management, and legislators to sell its products to other states through intergovernmental agreements is unfathomable. Illinois has long struggled with a troubled political culture and a system that protects those who commit fraud and abuse. I’m glad we finally have an administration taking a hard stance against these abuses.”
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED:
In 2013, we exposed what we believed was a huge H1B visa scandal going on in Illinois. The short version: Jobs were being provided to foreigners through the H-1B visa program, essentially robbing U.S. citizens of those jobs, all while paying those workers lower incomes than a U.S. Citizen would have received.
At the time of that reporting, one company only worked in government contracting, and of the 1000+ employees, 960 of them were on H-1B visas. We reported that Illinois won’t be able to put some people back to work permanently because of outsourcing over 55 ASSCME union jobs to India & H-1B Visa workers.
For those who missed this week’s headlines, Vice President JD Vance announced an H-1B visa crackdown alleging fraud and abuse. Link here for video of his announcement.
We investigated this and numerous other contract issues related to it for over 12 months back in 2013, including winning our first Freedom of Information Act case, pro se, against the Illinois Department of Health and Family Services.
We requested a formal criminal investigation into our findings at the time to the following:
- Bradley Hart -Inspector General, Healthcare and Family Services
- Illinois State Police – Criminal Investigative Division
- FBI -Attn: Robert Neal Ormerod
- Attorney General-Criminal Investigations
As has been the pattern in Illinois, crickets. Nothing was investigated, and the practice continued.
One of the companies involved in our research was Cognizant, which happens to be one of the named entities in the recent crackdown announcement by the Vice President. At the time of our reporting on Cognizant in 2013, we received the following comment from a former state employee who had direct knowledge of the issue.
“I applied to work on the MMIS project and was told that only workers with H-1b visas would be considered at Cognizant. I was told that I would not be considered to work on the project even though I was absolutely qualified to do so. I’ve been out of work for 3 months after being replaced by a worker on the H-1b outsourcing visa where I worked… and now this.”
While we are pleased to see that the current Federal Administration is taking action to curb the abuses, it’s truly sad that our first exposure of it in 2013 was ignored by those in charge during that time frame, including key agencies that had the power to investigate and provide accountability.
It should not take 13 years for the citizens to see allegations of wrongdoing investigated and accountability initiated.
You can view all of our history on this matter, which is found in numerous articles at the links here and here.
