70 Indians sue US government for denying H-1B visas

New York (Best Hindu News): Around 70 citizens have filed a lawsuit against the US government for denying them H-1B visas due to fraud committed by their employers. This has been said in a report by Bloomberg Law. A lawsuit filed this week in federal district court in Washington state says the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denied H-1B special occupation visas to Indian graduates despite their employment in legitimate occupations.

According to the complaint, Indian graduates employed through a training program for foreign graduates of US colleges and universities were unfairly penalized for their association with those businesses without a chance to respond. The Indians involved in the lawsuit worked for four IT staffing companies – Endville Technologies, Aztec Technologies LLC, Integra Technologies LLC and Wireclass Technologies LLC.

Each company was approved to participate in OPT (Optional Practical Training) and certified through the E-Verify Employment Program. Many international graduates participate in the OPT program to begin careers in the US while attempting to secure H-1B visas or other long-term status.

According to the lawsuit, DHS later revealed the government, schools and companies’ scheme to defraud foreign national students. Instead of protecting the students, DHS later accused them of this, Bloomberg Law cited the complaint. sought to impose sanctions as if they were co-conspirators who had knowingly participated in the fraud operation. “DHS really needs to go through the process of providing notice to affected parties and the ability to respond,” said Jonathan Wasden Law attorney, who is representing the plaintiffs.

Venkat joined Integra through OPT in 2016 after completing his master’s degree from the New York Institute of Technology.

The company, listed as one of the largest participants in the OPT programme, which as recently as 2019 employed over 700 student visa holders, asked students to pay for training to further upgrade their skills. need to.

Venkat quit his job at another IT firm within a few months and later tried to change the status from F-1 visa to H-1B visa last year. But DHS denied her H-1B visa, finding her inadmissible because of fraud or willful misrepresentation, the news report said.

The report quoted Venkat as saying, “If I have made a mistake, I will accept it. It was a mistake made by someone else. America has given me a lot of opportunities, which I cannot use now.

Venkat and others are asking the court to quash DHS’s ruling on their visa applications and to order that the agency allow them to respond to any fraud charges before making a decision on their admissibility to the US. The complaint states that DHS violated the Administrative Procedure Act by exceeding its authority and by treating Plaintiffs inadmissible without a complete record of evidence.

The complaint states that the agency’s action was also procedurally flawed because it did not inform visa applicants about the action being taken against them. More than 117,000 people are expected to participate in the program in calendar year 2022, according to the DHS component, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that runs the OPT program.