several tech companies in the US are suspected of conspiring to obtain visas for foreign workers – Kommersant

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has discovered that several dozen small technology companies colluded to increase the chances of their foreign employees obtaining an H-1B visa, said The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). This type of visa can be won in the lottery and allows foreigners working in the US to eventually become citizens of the country.

Companies have applied for visas for the same employees multiple times, according to USCIS. It is assumed that in this way they wanted to increase the chances of these workers to obtain a visa. Against this background, in 2023, the demand for H-1B visas has already increased: in total, 85,000 of them are issued, but 781,000 applications have already been sent. It is alleged that several applications were submitted for almost 96 thousand people, for a total of 408 thousand such repetitions.

The WSJ clarifies that it is technically not against the law to submit multiple applications for the same person. But if a foreigner receives a visa, the company must confirm that it has a job for him. In the explanations on the USCIS website saidthat repeated applications will be rejected.

According to WSJ sources, small companies in the technology and IT sectors participated in the collusion. It is alleged that some of them were created only for the purpose of submitting recurring visa applications. About what companies speech, it is not specified. All data about them was sent to law enforcement agencies for a possible investigation, one of the WSJ interlocutors added.

Laura Keffer