Analysis: How diversity dogma and H-1B visas sank a proud American brand



The United Services Automobile Association is one of the most venerable names in banking and insurance, a company that prides itself on its service to members of the military and their families. In recent years, however, USAA has run into serious financial trouble due to a combination of mismanagement, fashionable diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, and the firm’s increasing reliance on incompetent and untrustworthy H-1B workers, most of whom are from India.

A significant number of current and former USAA employees have come forward to discuss what they describe as a toxic workplace culture, which has led to an alarming number of employee suicides, and the company's outsourcing of critical functions to H-1Bs and Indian consultancies, putting at risk the financial data of its customers, which include high-ranking members of the U.S. armed forces.

What began as a cost-cutting strategy in the early 2000s now threatens the stability of an institution long trusted by veterans.

Insiders granted anonymity to avoid retaliation say USAA’s decline began in the 2000s under then-CEO Robert G. Davis, who outsourced IT and other core functions to H-1B contracting firms such as Tata Consultancy Services. Those firms imposed contracts requiring USAA to maintain minimum staffing levels, creating chronic overstaffing. Idle contractors were reportedly assigned “busywork” to meet quotas, with conference rooms converted into laptop farms where workers sat “packed like sardines.”

One insider described the result as “incredibly incompetent” operations. Projects that U.S.-based employees could complete on time were instead handed to H-1B contractors who often lacked the necessary skills and required retraining.

From cost-cutting to collapse

At the same time, USAA repeatedly laid off American staff and replaced them with foreign workers, driving labor costs higher and eroding institutional knowledge. Davis retired abruptly in 2007, but his successors continued his policies, expanding USAA’s offshore footprint with new IT centers in Guadalajara, Mexico, and Chennai, India.

Insiders say H-1B contractors at USAA often lack basic programming skills, compounding inefficiency. In one case, a credit card processing problem baffled contractors for six months until the company brought back a retired American employee, who solved the problem in a matter of days. The constant visa turnover worsens the issue. Skilled H-1Bs leave after six years, draining institutional knowledge. Turnover is even higher at USAA’s Guadalajara facility, where Indian employees reportedly fear cartel violence.

Bureaucratic bloat magnifies these problems. Each team has dual directors, and many systems rely on outdated software. That dysfunction has drawn scrutiny from federal regulators, who fined USAA for failed audits and violations of anti-money-laundering laws. Those failures forced the company to sell off divisions, including real estate, and pushed USAA into persistent losses through much of the decade.

Customers have also felt the effects. Many complain that poorly trained H-1B staff struggle to handle basic service requests. One customer said resolving a fraud alert took hours — and that he now contacts USAA’s top executives directly to get results.

Security risks and cultural decay

USAA’s growing dependence on H-1B contractors and overseas labor has created potential security and compliance risks, according to multiple insiders. The company has outsourced anti-money laundering work to Tata Consultancy Services, which reportedly performs much of that work in India. As a result, the personal financial data of U.S. service members and veterans may be stored or processed abroad.

USAA also shares customer data — including names, addresses, and birth dates — with LexisNexis, with no option for customers to opt out. One customer said he only discovered this practice after receiving a notice in the mail.

RELATED: The visa that ate America’s tech jobs

subodhsathe via iStock/Getty Images

Inside the company, these policies have coincided with a marked decline in morale. Mass layoffs of veteran employees have preceded at least three suicides, including one who shot himself in a company parking lot. A former director described intervening to stop another potential suicide. Tensions intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, when USAA defied Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order banning vaccine mandates.

Employees describe a sharp cultural shift away from USAA’s traditional military ethos toward a mishmash of corporate diversity programming. The company has hosted Diwali celebrations and mandatory DEI events while facing allegations of religious discrimination against Christian employees. One former employee has taken a case to arbitration. Internal surveys reportedly show employee satisfaction at just 33%.

An institution on the brink

Analysts say the company’s reliance on foreign labor and internal instability have eroded its reputation for customer service and financial stewardship. What began as a cost-cutting strategy in the early 2000s now threatens the stability of an institution long trusted by veterans.

Whether USAA can recover will depend on its ability to restore confidence — both among employees and the members it was established to serve.

A Potent Replacement for Fentanyl Is Emerging in the U.S. Experts Say China Is Behind It.

An even more potent replacement for fentanyl is emerging in the United States, and experts say China is behind its rise.

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How Trump Can Better Deal With New Delhi

NEW DELHI—As he showed in the Knesset this week, Donald Trump is making a serious bid to become a historically consequential figure, not just for upending American politics, but also for furthering world peace. A recent trip to India revealed the peace campaign creates some problems for Trump in the region, but also important opportunities.

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'Executive fiat': Biden-era rule change quietly permits H-1B visa holders to work remotely



Last week, a social media post went viral showing that a remarkable number of H-1B visa holders — brought to the U.S. ostensibly because American citizens already living here do not have the necessary skill sets in certain American industries — listed residential addresses as their “place of work,” according to government data. Upon further investigation, Blaze News discovered that not only were these claims true, but the legality of this loophole is strained, to say the least.

In a recent Blaze News column, Matt O'Brien, the deputy executive director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, argued that the H-1B program, and with it the de facto “work from home” proviso, has always benefited corporations and foreigners at the expense of American workers.

'Executive branch officials intrude into Congress's lawmaking authority by interpreting statutes in an unreasonably broad fashion.'

But are H-1B visa holders legally allowed to work from home? What is the legal basis?

RELATED: Project Firewall: DOL targets visa sponsors in unprecedented H-1B enforcement crackdown

Photo by MEGA/GC Images

Experts have raised concerns that government agencies likely do not have the authority to permit foreign nationals on nonimmigrant visas to work remotely. “There are numerous provisions throughout the H-1B statutes requiring employers to specifically identify all worksites where alien employees will be performing labor. These provisions were intended to ensure effective worksite enforcement, to protect American workers from unlawful competition, as well as to protect foreign workers from exploitation,” O’Brien explained.

Nevertheless, upon review of the laws surrounding H-1B regulations, Blaze News discovered that there are no mentions of “remote work” that would explicitly permit or forbid H-1B holders to work from home.

Rather, the H-1B “work from home” phenomenon can apparently be traced to a last-minute change made in the final days of the Biden administration after Trump won the 2024 election.

On December 18, 2024, the DHS filed the “H-1B Modernization Final Rule,” which took effect three days before Trump was sworn in to office. This lengthy document reveals a months-long deliberative process in which Biden officials relaxed H-1B enforcement standards to explicitly permit remote work — all under the pretext of “modernization.”

In the final rule, the DHS officially declares that remote work in “higher education, nonprofit research, or government research” would be permitted: “Work performed ‘at’ the qualifying institution may include work performed in the United States through telework, remote work, or other off-site work.”

These rule changes do not mention the names of other industries, such as the technology sector, indicating that the changes apply only to a discrete subset of H-1B-qualified positions.

The final rule also shifts from “where” duties should be “physically performed” to focusing on “the job duties” more generally. For example, when considering whether to approve an exemption for the number of H-1B visas, capped at 65,000 per year, the rule says that United States Customs and Immigrations Services “will focus on the job duties to be performed, rather than where the duties are physically performed.”

The final rule further revealed that an unnamed H-1B “advocacy group” lobbied USCIS to make the rules more permissive for remote work: “An advocacy group and a joint submission supported the proposal and stated that H-1B regulations should focus on duties performed rather than location of work performed.”

When a commenter raised an issue about an ambiguous loophole in the final rule that might lead to “fraud and abuse,” the DHS issued a flat denial that relied heavily on prepositions: “Congress chose to exempt … noncitizens who are employed ‘at’ a qualifying institution, which is broader than being employed ‘by’ a qualifying institution.”

Not only is this consequential loophole predicated on a subtle difference in prepositions; the response does not address the commenter’s concern about preventing fraud and abuse.

RELATED: White House's H-1B proclamation sparks confusion and backlash

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Another potential problem with this final rule is whether federal agencies in the executive branch have any legitimate authority to issue it at all since it seems to bypass congressional authority.

As O’Brien told Blaze News, “Remote work for H-1B workers [is] pure executive overreach. Remote work is permitted by Department of Labor regulations. However, those regulations do not trace back to any statutory source of authority as they should. Neither the initial H-1B legislation nor any of the subsequent amendments (the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998, the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act, and the H-1B Visa Reform Act of 2004) mention remote work.”

The final rule is apparently an improvement upon a longer-standing regulatory interpretation of the law by the Department of Labor, which works in concert with USCIS and the DHS on the enforcement of H-1B regulations. In a 2008 fact sheet, the DOL apparently regards “place of employment” as “a location where the worker spends most of his/her work time.”

This interpretation does not appear to be explicitly exclusive to “work from home” employment situations, although, again, a review of the statute yielded no direct reference to remote work for H-1B nonimmigrant workers.

This indicates that USCIS and the DHS, under Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas, appear to have effectively rewritten legislation.

“Executive branch officials intrude into Congress' lawmaking authority by interpreting statutes in an unreasonably broad fashion,” O’Brien added.

“While Congress is certainly not immune from turning bad policy into law, at least it generally does so publicly, after considerable debate. But remote work, like employment for H-1B spouses, has never been debated by the representatives of the American people; it was simply imposed by executive fiat," O’Brien continued.

This apparent “executive fiat” from the Biden administration raises several issues that warrant more attention, not least among them the seeming senselessness of immigrants to the United States performing remote work. This “modernization” rule thus encourages an increase in H-1B visa immigration at a time when immigration seems to make less sense from a business perspective.

Blaze News contacted the DHS for comment and was referred to the White House. The White House did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

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The UN once defended the oppressed. Now it defends the powerful.



I should be dead. Buried in an unmarked grave in Romania. But God had other plans.

As a young attorney living under Nicolae Ceaușescu’s brutal communist regime in the 1980s, I spent my life searching for truth in a regime of lies. I found it in the Bible — forbidden in my country. I answered the divine call to defend fellow Christians facing persecution in an ungodly land.

If the United Nations is to mean anything again, it must rediscover the courage that once gave refuge to dissidents like me.

For that “crime,” I was kidnapped, interrogated, beaten, and tortured. I spent months under house arrest and came within seconds of execution when a government assassin pointed a gun at me. I survived and fled to the United States as a political refugee.

The UN once stood for something

In his recent address to the 80th session of the U.N. General Assembly, President Donald Trump said the organization “has tremendous potential — but it’s not even close to living up to that potential.” He’s right.

When the United Nations was founded in 1945, its mission was noble: to promote peace, security, and human rights worldwide. It was meant to be a platform for honest dialogue, a beacon for humanitarian action, and a voice for the voiceless.

It once lived up to that promise. During the Cold War, the U.N. amplified the voices of dissidents behind the Iron Curtain and gave cover to lawyers like me defending Christians in communist courts. Its support for human rights cases in Romania helped expose Ceaușescu’s tyranny to the world.

That international pressure saved my life and countless others.

Bureaucracy replaced moral courage

Today’s U.N. bears little resemblance to that courageous institution. It has become paralyzed by bureaucracy and corrupted by politics. Instead of defending the oppressed, it often defends the powerful — or looks away altogether.

In Nigeria, Syria, and Yemen, millions suffer while the U.N. Security Council stalls over procedural votes. Permanent members protect their allies, veto resolutions, and block humanitarian intervention. Political calculations routinely outweigh moral imperatives.

When the institution created to prevent genocide can’t even condemn it, the crisis isn’t merely diplomatic — it’s spiritual.

Reform begins with courage

President Trump has proposed bold changes to restore the U.N.’s relevance. He called for adding permanent Security Council members — emerging powers such as India, Brazil, Japan, and Germany — to reflect modern realities and make the council more decisive.

He urged the U.N. to prioritize global security and counterterrorism while aligning its agenda with the legitimate interests of free nations. First lady Melania Trump, addressing the same assembly, launched Fostering the Future Together, a coalition promoting education, innovation, and children’s welfare.

These initiatives could help revive the U.N.’s moral voice and refocus it on its founding purpose: defending the oppressed and restraining the oppressors.

RELATED: Trump strongly defends Christianity at UN: ‘The most persecuted religion on the planet today’

Photo by seechung via Getty Images

Faith and courage still matter

My own survival came down to faith. When Ceaușescu sent an assassin to kill me, he pulled a gun and said, “You have ignored all of our warnings. I am here to kill you.”

In that moment of terror, I prayed: “Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my Savior.” Peace replaced panic. I began sharing the gospel.

That armed killer, confronted with God’s word, lowered his weapon, turned, and walked away. Today, he is a pastor — serving the same faith he once tried to destroy.

The lesson is simple: Hearts can change. Institutions can too. But it takes conviction.

If the United Nations is to mean anything again, it must rediscover the courage that once gave refuge to dissidents like me. It must speak for the enslaved, the persecuted, and the forgotten — not for dictators and bureaucrats.

God spared my life so I could keep fighting for truth. The U.N. was part of that story once. It can be again — if it remembers why it was born.

Gallery of the Gods

LONDON—Let me start my review of an exquisite exhibition with a small gripe: “Ancient India: living traditions” is saddled with a terrible name. The oh-so-obvious juxtaposition of opposites—of “ancient” with “living”—comes straight out of Headline Writing 101. Couldn’t the British Museum, the greatest repository of cultural artifacts in the world, have come up with something a little less clunky, a little more stylish, for a display that seeks to highlight how religious traditions born before the birth of Christ still persist (often unchanged) in present-day India? (That said, let us give thanks that the museum didn’t opt for “Eternal India,” or some such glib orientalist verbiage that would really have hit rock-bottom.)

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Trump to UN: Stop Propping up Iran and Hamas, Stop Your Members From Buying Russian Oil, and Fix Your Damn Escalators

President Donald Trump pointedly criticized the United Nations and its members during a fiery speech on Tuesday, urging them to stop propping up the Iranian terror regime and its proxy Hamas, end their purchases of Russian oil, secure their porous borders—and fix Turtle Bay’s malfunctioning escalators.

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Europe pushes for digital ID to help 'crack down' on completely unrelated problems



European leaders are pushing for the implementation of digital identification.

Specifically, both French President Emmanuel Macron and former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair have urged sitting U.K. PM Keir Starmer to consider making digital IDs mandatory.

'The same playbook is being used as a justification for broader powers to the establishment.'

Starmer is under pressure from English activists to stem illegal immigration, with illegal transport by sea from France being the primary focus. For this reason, Macron said he wants Starmer to address the "pull factors" that are allegedly attracting illegal immigrants to the U.K.

Apparently, digital ID would be the best way to do that, according to the French president.

As reported by the Independent, a compulsory national ID card is being considered by the U.K.'s highest office.

"We're willing to look at what works when it comes to tackling illegal migration, ... in terms of applications of digital ID to the immigration system," the prime minister's spokesman said.

"The point here is looking at what works, ensuring that we're doing what we can to address some of the drivers of illegal migration, tackle those pull factors, ensure that we're doing everything we can to crack down on illegal working," the spokesman added, echoing Macron's reasoning.

Simultaneously, a push factor is coming internally from former U.K. leader Blair, who actually tried the scheme before during his third term as prime minister.

RELATED: UK police face wave of backlash over live facial recognition tech at carnival

Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The Daily Mail reported that Blair was pushing the idea behind the scenes, continuing his attempt from the early 2000s to enforce the mandatory digital ID.

"In 2005, there was a huge vote which unfortunately was narrowly passed for ID cards in order to crack down on crime," Lewis Brackpool, director of investigations at Restore Britain, told Blaze News. "Many ministers were incredibly skeptical on this move due to its ever increasing powers to the state."

Brackpool cited a 2004 BBC report that criticized the IDs as a "badly thought out" excuse to fight organized crime and terrorism. It noted then that plans for the cards included biometric data that carried fingerprints and iris scans, and would have become compulsory in 2013. The plan was abandoned in 2010.

The Englishman continued, "Now, 20 years on, the same playbook is being used as a justification for broader powers to the establishment. Tony Blair is somewhere in his evil lair rubbing his hands and cackling; his career ambition is coming to fruition."

RELATED: YouTube admits to secretly manipulating videos with AI

Photo by Stuart Brock/Anadolu via Getty Images

The implementation of digital ID is straight from the playbook of the World Economic Forum, the yearly gathering of world elites where globalist policy is discussed and planned.

Seven years before the WEF broadcasted its report on reimagining digital ID and before its ideas became globally criticized, it published "A Blueprint for Digital Identity" in 2016.

The report boasted of the Aadhaar program, a government initiative from India that was implemented in order to "increase social and financial inclusion" for Indians. The Unique Identification Authority of India holds a database of user information "such as name, date of birth, and biometrics data that may include a photograph, fingerprint, iris scan, or other information."

Over 1 billion Indians have enrolled in the program for the 12-digit identity number, and it continues today.

As for England, "It is not a reasonable solution," Brackpool says. "It is the very thing many concerned British citizens and campaigners have been warning about for years down the line."

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Why is Trump’s Justice Department carrying water for Obama’s visa scam?



Donald Trump’s base has reached a clear conclusion: The entire importation of white-collar workers from India was a scam. It replaced American workers, fueled outsourcing to India, and boosted its economy at the expense of our own.

The labor market is so weak that even legal visa programs should be suspended under Trump’s 212(f) authority. Yet the H-1B and L visa pipelines remain open, and worse, the Trump Justice Department is defending one of Obama’s most lawless expansions: the H-4 spousal work program.

Defending Obama’s H-4 visa scheme undermines both the law and the American workforce.

Save Jobs USA, representing American workers, has sued the government for continuing Obama’s program that grants work permits to H-1B spouses on H-4 visas. Congress authorized the H-4 visa, but it never authorized work permits. Obama simply created them in 2015 by executive fiat.

Because the program is untethered from statutory limits, it has no cap. While the U.S. still issues around 120,000 H-1B visas each year — including under Trump — hundreds of thousands of spouses now work illegally in the same industries, displacing Americans. Most are funneled into the tech sector, overwhelmingly from India.

This lawsuit has been winding through the courts for nearly a decade. It began after Southern California Edison fired American workers and replaced them with H-1B visa holders. Both district and appellate courts in D.C. sided with the government. Now, as the case reaches the Supreme Court, Trump’s Justice Department filed a brief — signed off by Pam Bondi — arguing that plaintiffs lack standing to sue.

“Petitioner did not identify a single member who is ‘suffering immediate or threatened injury’ that is fairly traceable to the 2015 rule,” government lawyers wrote last month.

Even if one debates the technicalities of standing, why would Bondi waste resources defending a program that is plainly illegal and harmful to American workers — the opposite of what Trump promised in 2015?

A broader failure on foreign labor

Seven months into the new administration, the broader picture looks grim. The White House has failed to slow worker visa programs outside of narrow national security concerns. Trump has not invoked his 212(f) authority to halt needless foreign labor. Instead, he has floated the idea of importing 600,000 Chinese students — an economic and national security risk rolled into one.

This is the worst possible time to flood the market with foreign workers. The economy has averaged just 35,000 new jobs a month, the weakest pace since the Great Recession. Entry-level job listings are down 15% while applications are up 30%. The class of 2024 is still struggling: 41% underemployed, 58% still searching.

Tech companies, meanwhile, continue layoffs by the tens of thousands this year even as they lobby for more H-1Bs:

  • Intel: 21,000
  • Panasonic: 10,000
  • Meta: 3,600
  • Hewlett-Packard: 2,000
  • Hewlett Packard Enterprise: 2,500
  • IBM: 8,000
  • PayPal: 2,500
  • Dell: 12,500
  • TCS: 12,000

Why would they seek more visas in the middle of layoffs? Because nearly half of H-1Bs go to outsourcing and staffing firms, which feed India’s tech industry while hollowing out our own. Each expansion of the visa pipeline means more outsourcing, not more prosperity for Americans.

RELATED: American universities should be for Americans

Blaze Media illustration

The corporate capture

The deeper problem is the growing partnership between this administration and multinational tech giants. The government even owns a 10% equity stake in Intel. Palantir, which holds sensitive defense and health databases, has been allowed to staff up with foreign workers who now handle American taxpayers’ critical data.

Against this backdrop, Bondi’s defense of Obama’s illegal spousal work program looks less like a legal technicality and more like a political signal: This administration is drifting from Trump’s 2015 America First promises and closer to the “America Last” priorities of multinational corporations.

Back to 2015’s warning

The case against foreign workers is even stronger now than when Trump rode down that golden escalator a decade ago. The economy is weaker, the job market tighter, and the outsourcing racket more blatant. Defending Obama’s H-4 visa scheme undermines both the law and the American workforce.

The administration needs to remember what brought Trump to power in the first place. Stop importing foreign labor. Shut down lawless programs. Put American workers first.

Supporters of illegal alien truck driver accused of killing 3 demand light sentence: 'Shame on your white injustice'



Approximately 3 million people have signed a petition in support of Harjinder Singh, an illegal alien truck driver accused of killing three Americans on a Florida highway.

Last week, the nation was rocked when video appeared to show Singh attempting a U-turn on the Florida Turnpike while driving an 18-wheeler, pulling the rig across two lanes of traffic and killing three passengers in a minivan that crashed into his truck.

Singh has been charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and three counts of manslaughter, jail records show. He also has been placed on an immigration hold.

Now, a Change.org petition has popped up in support of the illegal alien driver, which contains bizarre requests and even more strange messages of support.

'I know it was an accident. He made a terrible mistake, not a deliberate choice to harm anyone.'

The India Times reported that Singh failed an English proficiency test, answering just two of 12 questions correctly while also being unable to identify more than one of four road signs.

The petition, however, claims that Singh should get lenient sentencing because he has no prior "criminal intent or history," despite being an illegal immigrant. The petition does not mention his failures in the post-crash testing.

Instead, the petition suggests a "proportionate and reasonable sentence" or "alternative sentencing measures," such as "restorative justice, counseling, or community service."

The comments in support of Singh are also garnering attention, as many appear to be pre-prepared and identical.

RELATED: License to kill: The nationwide scam turning America's highways into death traps

The petition highlights three featured comments on the page, chosen by creator Manisha Kaushal. Two of those comments are exactly the same, word for word (archived here).

The page also includes video testimonies from supporters, many of which are also identical, as pointed out by an X user. Account XJosh showcased four different supporters reciting the following:

I am in support of Harjinder Singh. I know it was an accident. He made a terrible mistake, not a deliberate choice to harm anyone. He was working hard to support his family like so many of us. One wrong decision changed everything. A 45-year prison sentence is not justice.

Other comments, such as "shame on your white injustice" and "please save our brother," revealed that some supporters harbor racist sentiments.

Blaze News reached out to the petition's creator and asked for clarification on the possible "alternative sentencing measures," as well as Singh's immigration status and his failure to properly communicate in English. No reply was provided.

RELATED: American trucking at a crossroads: Deadly crash involving illegal alien exposes true cost of Biden’s border invasion

ICE officers and Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins escort Harjinder Singh toward a waiting plane for Singh's extradition to Florida. Dean J. Condoleo/The Modesto Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

As previously reported by Blaze News, the Department of Transportation says 1,500 illiterate drivers have been taken off the road since June.

Department of Homeland Security official Tricia McLaughlin has also noted that Singh's work authorization was rejected in 2020 under President Trump but granted under President Biden in 2021.

Singh was granted a commercial driver's license in both California and Washington.

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