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The Story Behind nomoreh1bs.com

Kevin Flanagan worked for seven years as a computer programmer at Bank of America’s Concord Technology Center in Concord, California. In April 2003, Kevin and his colleagues were laid off as the bank moved to replace much of its U.S.-based IT staff with foreign visa workers. As a condition of receiving their severance, the laid-off employees were told they would spend the remainder of their time at the bank training their own replacements. According to his father, Tom, Kevin watched for almost a year as colleagues were forced out and replacement workers were brought over from India, trained in the same building, and sent back to do the work from New Delhi.

His last day was April 17, 2003. That same day, Kevin took his own life in the parking lot of the Concord Technology Center. He was 41 years old. Kevin’s story, that of a skilled American cast aside and made to train his own replacement, resonated with tech workers and labor activists across the nation. The Concord office became the site of repeated protests over the bank’s labor practices, and in 2008, following its decline and amid a recession, Bank of America put it up for sale.

Kevin’s story and legacy were kept alive by Pete Bennett, a software developer from the Concord area with decades of experience across banking, finance, and the public sector. Bennett founded nomoreh1b.com, a grassroots website dedicated to raising concerns about an immigration system that was increasingly pushing American tech workers out of their jobs and livelihoods. His activism drew national attention, including a segment on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Moneyline in 2003 and coverage in Bay Area newspapers.

In the years that followed, Bennett experienced significant personal hardship, including, by his own account, lost work, homelessness, and a string of legal battles. In 2009, he lost control of the nomoreh1b.com domain, an event he has described as theft. The domain passed to someone else, and it now operates as an Indonesia-based gambling website. For a website devoted to opposing the displacement of American talent and ingenuity, such a fate is a bitter irony.

The Problem with H-1B

The problems Bennett spoke out against have grown alongside the H-1B program and remain a subject of national debate. Each year, hundreds of thousands of H-1B registrations compete for a statutory limit of 85,000 visas, although certain employers and categories of workers are exempt. The program has faced scrutiny over duplicate registrations, fraudulent applications, illegal kickback schemes, discriminatory employment practices, and working conditions that have been described as “indentured servitude.”

In 2021, the Justice Department reached a settlement with Facebook over allegations that the company discriminated against American workers in favor of foreign labor when recruiting and hiring for positions tied to the permanent labor certification process. In 2024, a federal jury found that Cognizant had intentionally discriminated against non-Indian employees in certain termination practices. Separately, federal agents set up and ran a fictitious university in Michigan as part of an undercover investigation into immigration fraud, which led to the prosecution and sentencing of eight people accused of helping foreign nationals fraudulently maintain their immigration status.

Each of these cases involves different programs and circumstances, but all of them raise serious questions about employer accountability, immigration enforcement, and fair treatment in the labor market. Companies and other institutions should not be permitted to exploit employment arrangements or immigration programs to evade their legal obligations, circumvent fair recruitment practices, or suppress the wages of qualified American workers. Where employers engage in discriminatory hiring, fraudulent recruitment, or arrangements that undermine workers’ bargaining power, those practices should be investigated and addressed.

Access to the American market should come with a responsibility to respect American workers and invest in the communities that sustain our economy. That means creating opportunities for young people to build careers, earn a living wage, and support families of their own. Our laws and institutions must be reformed to protect American workers from discriminatory employment practices, abusive labor arrangements, and corporate incentives that put their livelihoods at risk.

About Me

My name is Matthew H. Phillips, and I am an American college graduate and recently displaced technology worker. I have experienced firsthand a labor market in which qualified American workers are pushed aside while less qualified foreign workers are placed, through outsourcing firms and prejudicial hiring and management practices, into Fortune 500 companies and Silicon Valley alike.

Foreign labor should not be treated as an interchangeable substitute for American workers. American prosperity belongs first and foremost to the American people, and that principle should be enshrined in our nation’s laws and customs. The interests of foreign labor markets, multinational corporations, and institutions seeking to exploit cheaper labor must never be permitted to take precedence over the economic security and future of the American people.

I brought this website back as nomoreh1bs.com to pick up where Pete left off. It’s for Kevin, for Pete, and for every American who has been told that they are no longer needed, that their livelihood is expendable, and that they must train their own replacement before being shown the door.

Contact: nomoreh1bs@protonmail.com