High Rate of H-1B Visa Fraud
BusinessWeek: "A study finds that 13% of the visa petitions for U.S. employers to bring in skilled foreign workers are fraudulent."
FTA: "Technical violations include cases in which the visa worker was not working or had never worked at the specified location on the application. Fraudulent cases involved situations in which the worker was paid at or below the prevailing wage, which companies are required by law to pay.
In other cases, the job duties were significantly different from the position listed on the visa petition. This could involve misrepresenting the skill set required or the location of the job. Accounting, human resources, business analyst, sales, and advertising occupations are more likely than other categories to involve fraud, according to the study. Other areas in which violations were found include computer-related occupations, and art and managerial jobs. "Until we make a conscious effort to close the loopholes, we're going to see continued abuse where people coming to this country on H-1B visas are working at Laundromats," said Grassley in a statement. He was referring to situations in which companies misrepresent what type of work the visa holder will do.
In the study, visa workers with only bachelor's degrees were subject to higher fraud or technical violation rates (31%) than those with graduate degrees (13%). Fraud and violations were more common for companies employing 25 or fewer employees and with annual gross income of less than $10 million."
Article: http://tinyurl.com/4rhgcp
- matt's blog
- Login or register to post comments
This all doesn't surprise me. This is only the tip of the iceberg as far as abuse of the H1B, L1 and other work visa programs go.
Some other ways I have heard that H1B workers are exploited, especially by foreign owned consulting companies... In some cases employers hold the H1B's passport and other documents in order to keep them from being able to transfer their visa to another employer. I've also heard that they often require kickbacks, bribes, etc., in order to get around the prevailing wage requirements (so that if the company is audited, on paper it looks like they are paying a legal wage when in fact they aren't). One way that this is often done is that the companies sometimes require H1Bs to live in quarters they provide, usually in overcrowded conditions and pay high rent and board charges. They may also be forced to share in "expenses" for commuting with other workers, for which they are charges more than fair amounts. The workers are threatened that they will be deported or that their relatives back in their home country may be harmed if they report any of these abuses. I've never heard of a US owned employer doing these kinds of things though, its always been H1Bs or L1s that work for the US offices of foreign owned consulting companies.