Shop

Techsploitation was a yearlong investigation by The Center for Investigative Reporting that examined conditions facing foreign workers lured to the U.S. to service the back end of America's IT infrastructure. CIR's investigation produced multiple text stories, as well as a television investigative report, and a graphic novel-style profile of a worker trapped in his job. The stories examined the ways employers wielded extraordinary control over temporary immigrant tech workers in a system one called an “ecosystem of fear.” The investigation focused on two main areas: How labor brokers providing Indian high-tech workers to American companies gamed a professional visa program, creating a shadow world that can turn a worker's dream of self-betterment into a financial nightmare and how porous federal oversight has allowed even labor brokers caught abusing workers to continue to thrive, even obtain federal IT contracts.