Epaper
NEW DELHI: A recent US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) study, H1-B Benefit Fraud & Compliance Assessment, found a 27 per cent rate of fraud in the H1-B visa programme.
According to the study, there were a total of 51 cases from the sample of 246 H1-B petitions that were fraud or a technical violation of the regulations.
The research primarily found two types of fraud, one, where there was ‘willful misrepresentation, falsification, or omission of a material fact’; and two, where there was no willful fraud, but `there was evidence that the employer or alien beneficiary failed to comply with applicable laws and regulations.’
The most blatant misrepresentation according to it was in a case where the H1-B visa worker “was performing duties that were significantly different from those described on the LCA and I-129 petition.” In this particular case, an IT professional hired as a ‘business development analyst’ was found to be `working in a Laundromat doing laundry and maintaining washing machines.’
Some of the other fraudulent activities included cases where either the business did not exist or the degrees and supporting documentation were found forged. In several cases, signatures too were found forged.
USCIS study also found that 27 percent of the workers surveyed were being paid less than the prevailing wage for a particular job description and location.
The study though termed some of the `technical’ violations as minor infractions, it called other `technical’ violations as serious breaches of regulations.
