A request by 10 U.S. senators to investigate H-1B visa use at Southern California Edison (SCE) and other companies is meeting resistance at the U.S. Department of Labor.

The DOL is telling lawmakers that it can’t initiate an investigation in the absence of a complaint by an employee. The department also seems to be suggesting, in a letter to lawmakers, that an investigation may be fruitless because it is legal to replace U.S. workers with H-1B workers.

The DOL “lacks a basis to initiate an investigation,” wrote M. Patricia Smith, the solicitor of labor for the department, in a letter to U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), one of the 10 senators who requested an investigation of SCE and reports of other displacements of U.S. workers as well. The department’s Wage and Hour Division “has not received a complaint from an aggrieved party or a credible source,” she wrote.

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