Not really. The answer to this is simple: plausible deniability. If the records are only temporary, and get expunged after 5 years, then the US government suddenly has an out for bad press over a long history of abuses of the H1B program that have gone unchecked. Instead of changing policy, fixing the program, and investigating historical abuses by various (mostly tech) companies, it is easier to rewrite history.
The answer will now be: "Oh, well, uhm, we can't possibly investigate company X for H1B visa abuses. The records are temporary and no longer exist. Since the records no longer exist, we cannot possibly comment. To the best of our knowledge, the H1B program works."
An H1B visa is a non-immigrant visa, and has nothing to do with helping illegals to stay in the country. H1B visas are good for 3 years, and usually renewed for another 3 years, and then the workers return to their country and take their job with them. That's why the former commerce secretary of India called the H1B visa the "outsourcing visa."
Or, as Ron Hira, public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology says, "It's government policy that is actually trying to speed up the offshoring of jobs."
Congress sets the number of H1B visa, created in 1990 at 65,000 workers, the Immigration Innovation Act of 2013 (or I-Squared Act) wants to raise that number to a whopping 300,000 workers. It's a bipartisan bill, enthusiastically endorsed all around. Senate Republican Mark Rubio of Florida and Senator Orin Hatch of Utah are the bill's authors. It's still in the Judiciary Committee, though. When the timing is right, like, you know, January, it'll likely come out of the closet for a full vote.
Top 10 Companies That Request the Most Visas for Foreign Workers - ABC News
H-1B visa abuse limits wages and steals US jobs
