Nation IN BRIEF : NATIONWIDE : Visa Plan Hurts U.S. Workers, Audit Says

A program that lets hundreds of thousands of foreigners temporarily fill unique, high-skill U.S. jobs is lowering wages and pushing out American workers, a draft government audit says. Rather than helping U.S. businesses to better compete globally, the program has become a “rubber stamp” for both skilled and unskilled foreigners seeking to live and work in the U.S., said the report prepared for the Labor Department. The inspector general’s audit concluded the program “allows aliens to immigrate based on their attachment to a specific job and then shop their services in competition with equally or more qualified U.S. workers without regard to prevailing wage.”