However, the GAO seeks some improvements. One recommendation calls for creation of a centralized Web site where businesses would be required to post notice of their intent to hire H-1B workers.

This recommendation was endorsed by the DOJ. Leon Rodriguez, the chief of staff of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, wrote in a letter included in the report, that the Web site "would help U.S. workers determine if they have been impermissibly replaced by H-1B visa holders and identify employers who may be engaged in a pattern of discrimination against U.S. workers."

But the DOJ went beyond the GAO's recommendations and made one of the own. It said that all employers, before they hire an H-1B holder, "should be required to 'test' the labor market to determine whether qualified U.S. workers are available and to hire any equally or better qualified U.S. workers who apply."

The U.S. Labor Dept. says that an H-1B employer "is not required to recruit U.S. workers" unless it is deemed dependent employer, meaning it has passed a certain threshold in hiring or is a violator. But these employers need only attest, rather than demonstrate, that they took good faith steps to hire a U.S. worker, according to the GAO.

Between 2000 and 2009, the were born in Asia, with India accounting for about 47% and China, the second largest, at 9%.