The widespread, flagrant abuse of the H-1B visa, which allows employers to hire non-immigrant foreign workers for IT jobs and other skilled work, is drawing bipartisan attention in Congress. In particular, the case of Southern California Edison (SCE), which used two Indian outsourcing firms to replace 400-500 well-paid U.S. workers with cheaper guestworkers, has caught the attention of leaders from both parties. 10 senators sent a letter to the Obama administration calling for an investigation by the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Labor.

As we have pointed out many times, the biggest users of the H-1B visa are not small businesses looking for a rare scientist or information technology wizard. Rather, they are big corporations like Disney, SCE, and Northeast Utilities that want to reduce their labor costs by hiring younger, cheaper foreign workers. They hire “body shops” like Tata, Infosys and Wipro to import Indian college graduates to replace U.S. workers who might be paid $30,000 or $40,000 more. And it’s legal! It’s wrong and it’s appalling, but it’s legal.

Microsoft, Google, and the other high tech companies that want to increase the number of H-1B visas available to private employers by 120,000 or so claim they can’t find the tech workers they need in the U.S. and don’t have access to enough foreign workers. There is not much evidence to support their claim. But one thing is clear: if the H-1B visa weren’t used to replace U.S. workers, there would be a lot more available to Microsoft et al. Congress should reform the H-1B and prevent its abuse before it gives any thought to expanding the number of visas available.