Just over a month after a US federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s proposed $100,000 fee requirement for H-1B applicants, the government has announced an investigation into potential fraud in this temporary work visa programme.
Also under scrutiny is a labour certification system that serves as the gateway to most employer-sponsored “green cards” that allow permanent residence in the US.
On Wednesday, US Vice President JD Vance said that the US was investigating foreigners involved in fraud related to the H-1B programme.
He said that the Federal Department of Labor had on Wednesday “started dozens of subpoenas and investigations into foreign fraudsters who are trying to take advantage of the H-1B visa programme.”
A subpoena is a written order to attend a court of law to give evidence.
“American jobs ought to go to American workers and not foreign fraudsters,” Vance declared.
In a press release, the US Labour Department said that it has “uncovered widespread schemes in which employers and labor brokers submitted fraudulent applications, exploited foreign workers through coercive wage-kickback arrangements, and undercut American workers by flooding the market with below-wage labor”.
These abuses, it said, “undermine the integrity of …programs designed to address genuine labor shortages – not to line the pockets of bad actors at the expense of American jobs”.
#WATCH | On H-1B…
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