A former IT worker at Disney, who was reportedly forced to train his own replacement, has some advice for current employees on how to resist if they encounter similar situations.
In a telephone interview with The Dallas Express, Leo Perrero—a longtime IT worker at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts—discussed how he and hundreds of his colleagues were laid off in 2015 after being required to train replacements brought in through an outsourcing firm using H-1B visas.
“I hadn’t heard of it… until it caused me to lose my job. Well, train my replacement and then lose my job,” Perrero told The Dallas Express.
At the time, Disney CEO Bob Iger called the decision to have Americans train their replacements a “mistake,” but he stopped short of rehiring most of the laid-off employees, per the Hollywood Reporter and CBS.
Perrero told The Dallas Express that he and other Americans faced a 1-2-year rehire ban that prevented most from transitioning to other roles within the company and with contractors.
The episode, which later drew national attention, continues to shape Perrero’s views on the visa program and what workers should do if they believe their employer is moving toward outsourcing.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa category that allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire foreign workers to perform mostly white-collar labor that typically requires at least a bachelor’s degree.
Warning Signs
Perrero said the layoffs did not come out of nowhere and identified several warning signs employees should watch for.
One of the earliest signals came from leadership.
“The chief technology officer, during a big public hall meeting, sort of came right out and said it; probably a good six months before it happened. … [He said] ‘We’re going to bring in resources from outside and we’re going to operate. We’re going to have a donut of labor,’” Perrero told The Dallas Express.
Other indicators included policy and structural changes, such as the following:
- Limits on cashing out unused vacation time
- Reorganization under ITIL models that split teams, with “steady state” or maintenance roles most vulnerable
- Increasing demands for detailed documentation of daily tasks and systems
“They did change the way that vacation, that you could cash in your vacation. … they started asking us for more and more documentation on things,” Perrero explained.
Perrero added that the documentation requests were later used to transfer knowledge to replacements, who often sat side by side with employees, recording their screens for offshore teams.
“I had to train somebody sitting next to me… while they were recording [my] screen,” he said.
Perrero’s Advice
Looking back, Perrero said he would not have cooperated had he understood the situation earlier.
“Had I known at the very beginning, I would have absolutely walked out day one and had nothing to do with it,” he said.
He now advises workers in similar situations to resist participating in training their replacements.
“No compliance. No, no… You’re leading yourself down a path that’s going to result in you training your replacement,” he said.
Perrero suggested that collective action would be more effective than individual resistance.
“Well, I’m not a big believer in unions, but I would get everybody collectively to walk out at once. And everybody… At the same time, leave,” he said.
He warned that compliance only accelerates outsourcing trends.
“It’s a cancer that just keeps growing. So the more Americans that go along with it, the worse it gets,” Perrero told The Dallas Express.
Views on H-1B Reforms
Perrero said recent federal changes — including higher wage requirements and a $100,000 supplemental fee on certain H-1B hires — may influence corporate decisions but do not address what he sees as the core issue.
“Yes, it could have helped at the time because if it really did cost an extra $100,000 to fly people in, the way that it happened to us probably would have made it not as lucrative of a business decision,” he said.
However, he described such measures as temporary.
“It’s an executive order. It’s nothing permanent … As soon as the next person comes into office, they would have to renew it. If they don’t, it just falls off the books,” said Perrero.
Perrero said he no longer closely follows legislative efforts, arguing that decades of proposals have failed to produce lasting change.
“I’ve given up really tracking them. And the reason why is none of them ever go anywhere,” he said.
Legislators, such as then-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), have introduced bills to abolish the H-1B visa over several years, The Dallas Express reported at the time.
Perrero agreed, stating, “The program should actually be eliminated 100%. There’s other programs that are designed for geniuses, like the O-Visa.”
The O-1A Visa, a visa category for individuals with “extraordinary ability,” has been increasingly marketed by immigration consultancies as an alternative to the H-1B and a means of avoiding its procedural headaches.
Broader Debate
The debate over H-1B visas has intensified in recent months amid layoffs at major tech firms, including Oracle Corporation, where job cuts tied to artificial intelligence investments have raised questions about workforce priorities, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Federal data show that a small number of companies dominate H-1B usage in Texas, with firms like Cognizant and Infosys accounting for tens of thousands of approvals, according to reporting by The Dallas Express.
At the same time, recent policy changes have reportedly reduced the number of applicants, pushing lottery selection rates above 50%.
Seventy-two percent of H-1B visas are awarded to Indian nationals, with 12% to Chinese nationals, according to 2023 USCIS data.
Supporters of the program argue that the program is necessary to supplement the domestic labor force. A 2024 research packet from the American Immigration Council stated that the program exists to “fill employment gaps in many STEM occupations, and expand job opportunities for all.”
Yet the U.S. labor force is currently experiencing elevated unemployment across many Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields. Roughly 1 in 4 computer science majors and computer engineers are unemployed or underemployed, The Dallas Express previously reported.
The program remains federally controlled, with agencies such as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services overseeing approvals, limiting the role of state and local governments in regulating its use.
For Perrero, the issue remains personal and widespread.
“Considering the fact that I didn’t know what this was prior to it dramatically changing my life, I would want Americans to understand that this is a very common — extremely common — business practice in the technology field,” Perrero said.
