Federal complaint outlines H-1B fraud scheme

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12. The scheme is that these employers, who must sponsor H1-B visas, stole pay from their employees

H1-B visa workers are essentially slaves to the company who holds their work visa. H1-B employees can not work any where else without going through the filing process again - which could take months once they find a willing employer. Their choice is to stay here and keep trying to find a good employer or go home.

So employers often take advantage of H1-B visa workers, stalling paperwork, failing to follow labor laws (unpaid overtime, unreimbursed travel, 90 hour work weeks, etc), and in this case, not paying the employees for work performed and forcing them into circumstances where they may not have had the money to go home or go elsewhere (think sweatshop).

The fines for violating labor laws re: H1-B employees are very small - often no more than $1000 per incident. Think of the pay off of not paying someone $50,000 and only being fined $1000.

H1-B visas are a bad program run badly. It needs to end. We have plenty of unemployed tech and high-demand workers in this country.