A government report has revealed details pertaining to fraud and abuse of the H-2B work visa. As per this report, one of the cases involves over 87 nationals from India had paid a minimum of $20,000 per head to cross the US borders illegally.
About 10 such cases have been detailed in the report. These included cases which projected unfair wages being paid to employees, fake documentation, and extravagant fee being charged to employees and so on. These cases revealed abuse committed by employers and recruiters who were participating in the H-2B visa program and were functioning in about 29 states.
GAO reviewed 10 cases where in 6 were found to have allegations with employers not paying the H-2B employees the designated hourly wage along with overtime and so on. Six cases were found where in the employers had charged a fee from their H-2B visa workers. This fee was charged for the employer benefit. There were instances where excessive fee was charged leading to a wage which was below the hourly federal minimum wage. Another eight of the ten cases were found to have allegations where employers had submitted fake documents.
The H-2B visa is a non-immigrant work visa which permits immigrants to come and work in the United States on a temporary basis. Based on this visa, the immigrants can engage in employment which is non-agricultural in nature, seasonal, intermittent or is dependent on peak load.
For instance, as per GAO, there is a company based in Louisiana that had acquired $1.8 million through a conspiracy involving this visa program. This led to 87 Indian nationals being brought into the United States illegally. In order to do so, fraudulent documents were submitted to federal agencies claiming to seek workers from India. For each of the H-2B visa, $20,000 was charged but then these people were never employed by the firm.
As per the GAO report, the representatives from the firm actually traveled all the way to India to cater to the applications of these Indians and for other correspondence with the US Consulate. The machinators have been charged with federal crime in 2008.
Similarly, the report stated that in 2009, the owner of a construction company pled guilty and was sentenced to a term of three years probation with another 6 months in home confinement.
Above all, this clearly tells all those intending to immigrate to be aware and check the credentials of those offering their services.
