In the wake of a report claiming up to 20 percent of H-1B applicants may be fraudulent, the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services will look more closely at H-1B visa applications.
The agency
responsible for granting H-1B visa applications plans to tighten up its
procedures for vetting and approving the applications in the wake of a report
indicating as many as 20 percent of the applications may be fraudulent or
technically flawed.
The U.S.
Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is responsible for
approving and administering H-1B applications, will increase the level of
detail in which H-1B visa applications are examined and do what it can to
eliminate the types of problems identified in the report, according to
department spokesman Bill Wright.
The report is an audit of 246 applications that found 13 percent of the applicants used
forged documentation, false businesses or addresses, false job offers, or
misrepresented their immigration status. Another 7 percent had technical
violations such as requiring the applicant to pay the application fee or list a
salary substantively above what the applicant would actually be paid.
The report,
H-1B Benefit Fraud & Compliance Assessment (PDF), was done at the request of Sen. Chuck
Grassley, R-Iowa, a longtime critic of U.S. immigration policy in general and
the H-1B program in particular.
Neither Grassley nor
other representatives involved in H-1B legislation responded to calls, but the
staff of Lamar Smith, R-Texas, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee,
called the frequency of the fake degrees, fake businesses and forged documents
"troubling."
"We cannot allow
individuals to abuse H-1B visas in order to enter the country fraudulently and
take jobs from American workers. The Administration must do more to protect the
American worker and restore integrity to the H-1B visa program," the
statement continued.
Among
the changes under consideration, according to Wright, are:
-
Increases in the number of visits
investigators make to the sites of potential H-1B employers, to confirm that
the companies exist, the nature of their business and the job descriptions of
the H-1B applicants involved.
-
Modifying the evidence required to
extend an H-1B visa, such as a W-2 form to confirm the salary being paid.
-
Changes to the I-129 forms used in the
applications to make them less cumbersome to fill out and less prone to error.
-
A plan to use "open-source" data to
verify the identity of petitioners. Open-source, Wright said, is any form of
data that is open to the public, though he couldn't say whether that meant
information available through Internet searches, commercial databases or other
methods.
The USCIS
is also working with the Department of Labor on changes to the Immigration and
Naturalization Act that would allow a broader use of the $500 every applicant
pays into an anti-fraud fund that is supposed to pay for the policing of the
system.
H-1B applications are
a very complex process, and the forms involved are far from clear, according to
Bob Deasy, director of liaison and information for the American Immigration
Lawyers Association, whose members often represent employers of H-1B workers.
"There are
things that are counterintuitive," he said. "An employer may not be
aware of the steps that have to be taken in order to lawfully comply under the
steps of the H-1B program. The approach we take looking at the report is that
it highlights the need for more clarity with immigration service forms and
instructions from the USCIS."
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