Immigrant Stereotypes and Employment Discrimination: Signals of Exploitation Opportunism

As applications for H-1B visas by employers reach record numbers, there have been an increasing number of allegations of discrimination towards U.S. employees and anecdotal indications of immigrant employee exploitation in the information technology sector. We draw from prior research on traditional hiring discrimination and immigrant labor to investigate exploitation opportunism, the act by employers to target applicants for hire based on the perceived cheap cost of their labor. We contend that visa status signals applicants’ exploitability to employers making them targeted candidates because of their perceived immigrant economic utility. Using an audit study design, our results show that fictitious foreign-born applicants who demonstrate the need of H-1B work visa sponsorship for employment receive significantly more favorable email responses to job ads than their domestic counterparts.