H-1 B and L-1 Be Aware: Surprise visit to your company from the Immigration

Don't be surprised if someone shows up at your company asking to see you, your boss and the HR. Another reason why you should not even try to get an H-1B or L-1 visa. The USA DOES NOT WANT YOU, FOREIGNERS, TO BE HERE to steal jobs from Americans.

The following is a report by one company HR:

The investigator came back yesterday. Her name was ______________. She indicated that she was a contractor hired to conduct these investigations (this is similar to the investigators that conduct the background investigations for government clearances). She had a badge with a picture.

She first met with me (HR REP). She asked me some very basic questions about the company, what we did, how many employees we had, work hours, office locations, etc. She also asked me how many employees we had on H1Bs, how many we had sponsored for permanent residency and how many total of our employees are legal permanent residents. It was hard to answer these off the top of my head. She said approximate numbers were ok even after I offered to get an employee list that I could look at to get her the exact numbers. She then asked me a couple of questions about the H-1B employee – what he did, his salary, work hours and start date. She asked me for ID so she could verify that I was who I said I was and she asked to see a W-2 or pay stub. I didn’t have either so I showed her the payroll register from our last payroll which satisfied her requirement. She then met with the foreign national employee for a couple of minutes. He said that she asked him about his job duties, work hours and salary. She also checked his ID. She asked me for a quick tour around our offices and left.

It was a pretty quick process. None of her questions were hard to answer – hopefully we passed. She was very nice and professional. I did apologize to her that I missed her when she came over the first time and she said that they want their visits to be “surprise” visits so unfortunately this is a problem they have to deal with.

The foreign national employee did tell me that he asked her if he was selected randomly and she indicated that he wasn’t – I guess they are going to be doing this for everyone.


My comments:

I am sure many H-1B holders have job duties that are very heavily altered. Some L-1's are just plain lies. Lawyers and paralegals should consider seriously to get out of the business immigration field. Your clients are angry. The government is giving you a hard time. I am sure some of you will get indicted because of the worsening job market.

More comments by a lawyer at:

http://ailaleadership.blogspot.com/2009/08/uscis-h-1b-investigations-run-amok.html