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Federal Prosecutors Actually Prosecute H1-B Fraud (ap.org)

Slashdot reader McGruber reports that federal prosecutors "have filed conspiracy charges against a part-owner of two information technology firms and an employee for fraudulently using the H-1B program". Both were reportedly recruiting foreign IT workers, according to the AP: Prosecutors said the conspirators falsely represented that the foreign workers had full-time positions and were paid an annual salary [when] the workers were only paid when placed at a third-party client, and the defendants sometimes generated false payroll records... The defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit visa fraud and obstruct justice and conspiracy to harbor aliens.
They're now facing up to 15 years in prison for an "alien-harboring conspiracy" charge -- with a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine -- and a separate visa fraud and obstruction of justice charge with a maximum 5-year penalty and a $250,000 fine.

3 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. A company pays $100/hour to a contracting company by bfmorgan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    An the pour worker gets $40/hour. This is a story I see more and more often. An authorize contracting company will supply us a candidate. We hire the candidate at the agreed upon rate of $100/hour. We find out later after he is on board that he has a second contracting company who is his prime contracting agency. This prime agency is not an authorize company to deal with my company. The resulting pay per hour after the authorized contracting company takes their 30-40% and the prime contracting company takes their 30-40% is that pour worker gets $40-$50 per hour. It gets worse, after the period of time that the worker has performed well and we wanted to hire them and transfer the H1-B to my company, the prime contracting company says that if he does this they will report to the government that he didn't actually work in the US. We found out later that they were paying them in Rupee in India. Loopholes are for the dishonest and greedy.

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    I hope this caused some synapses to fire.
  2. Re:So they only prosecute a safe, "no-harm" target by lgw · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's not news to hear them take down trivial targets, let's hear it when they actually take down bigger fish

    Taking down easy targets is what the beginning of taking down hard targets looks like. Enforcing H1-B laws at all is rare enough that even the small fry are newsworthy. Lets hope there's some actual follow-through.

    The H1-B laws as written are pretty good: you have to pay at least average, and you must have at least tried to hire a US citizen. We all know companies that cheat on this, but I've worked for plenty that don't cheat. It's easy to know the cheaters, because all, or nearly all, low-level employees are H1-Bs.

    Companies just trying to fill reqs with qualified people will have a real mix of citizens, green cards, and various visas. That's what it looks like when you're desperate to hire, and you'll find a way to hire anyone who gets through your interviews: a diverse mess of immigration statuses. And, importantly, they're all employees, not any outsourcing going on.

    OTOH, if you're a body-shop outsourcing company that just competes on price, it's almost all H1-Bs (except some management), no one on green card track, everyone underpaid, so damn easy to see what's happening there. If only the federal government gave a fuck.

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    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  3. Re:So they only prosecute a safe, "no-harm" target by amiga3D · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd be curious to see where you get your data. For some reason it's very difficult to find hard data on crime by illegal immigrants. Texas is one of the few states that keeps track of it and there illegals for the period of 2011 to 2015 committed about 7.5 percent of the murders in that state. Given that illegals are estimated to be about 6 percent of the population of the state that's probably slightly higher than average but not seriously higher and probably within a margin of error. I really don't have a problem with people from Mexico coming to the US but I think it's only reasonable to expect them to register and apply for a green card. I don't really get why people think it's okay for 11 million people to just come here and set up shop without documentation. Sure, the wall is a stupid idea and I'm sure it's just Trump being his blowhard self. I figure even he knows it's not going to happen. I really think though that these people should be required to comply with the law.