H-1B: Feds want criminal charges over application fraud for Silicon Valley’s favorite visa

Federal authorities say they plan to seek criminal prosecution over fraudulent application schemes for the H-1B visa, heavily used by Silicon Valley technology companies to obtain foreign workers.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said last week that evidence gathered while it processed skyrocketing H-1B applications this year and last year led to “extensive fraud investigations.” The agency said it was starting to refer cases to law enforcement, to prosecute businesses that falsely claimed to have jobs for proposed visa recipients.

Not only has the number of applications risen sharply — from about 301,000 for 2022 to 474,000 for this year to 759,000 for next year — Citizenship and Immigration has seen many more cases of multiple companies submitting initial registrations for the same worker, the agency said in an online update Friday.

“Some (companies) may have tried to gain an unfair advantage by working together to submit multiple registrations on behalf of the same beneficiary,” the agency said. “This may have unfairly increased their chances of selection.”

It was unclear which businesses were allegedly involved, or whether any are in the Bay Area.

The lottery-based H-1B program sees 85,000 new visas issued per year. Intended for workers with specialized skills, the H-1B is commonly used to acquire talented foreign technologists, but data show it has also been widely used to hire cheaper labor. A 2020 report by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute concluded that 60% of H-1B jobs certified by the U.S. Department of Labor were assigned wage levels well below local median pay for the occupation.

“It’s incredibly profitable to hire an H-1B worker instead of an American because they’re cheaper,” said Ron Hira, a Howard University professor who co-authored the institute’s report.

Citizenship and Immigration said it was pushing for criminal prosecutions in cases where companies applying for an H-1B visa did not have an actual job for the proposed recipient, as is required under the H-1B program, but falsely attested that they did.

Under changes made in 2020 by the administration of former President Donald Trump, initial H-1B applications have been replaced by a “registration” system and become far less costly. The registration process, which produced the 759,000 initial applications for next year, requires only a $10 payment. Applicants only pay the full application fees if their registration is selected during the lottery.