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H-1B Visa Crackdown: DOJ Charges Indian CEO With Fraud on Nearly 200 Applications
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged a Seattle-area CEO with visa fraud, accusing him of abusing the country's H-1B visa program by using falsified documents to hire as many as 200 foreign workers.
The DOJ filed visa fraud charges against Pradyumna Kumar Samal on Friday, August 24, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. He is CEO of two technology firms in Redmond, Washington; one Divensi, an IT services firm, and the other Azimetry, a geospatial data processing company.
In its complaint, the DOJ asserts that Samal, 49, "knowingly" used a "bench and switch" tactic to get H-1B visas, which are meant to allow U.S. companies to hire highly skilled foreign professionals in industries where there are shortages of qualified American workers.
The government alleges that Samal, who was arrested at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport as he got off an international flight on Tuesday, fabricated projects that he claimed would require the short-term employment of foreign workers, going so far as to include fake letters from corporate clients to corroborate his claim.
The DOJ asserts that the projects did not actually exist and that the letters themselves had not been written by real clients. Once the worker was granted an H-1B visa, the DOJ alleges that they would be assigned to projects different than the ones initially listed on Samal's visa application.
"The forged documents included forged letters and fraudulent statements of work, which appeared as if they had been signed by senior executives," the DOJ said in a statement.
https://www.newsweek.com/h-1b-visa-...aud-nearly-200-h-1b-visa-applications-1097174
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged a Seattle-area CEO with visa fraud, accusing him of abusing the country's H-1B visa program by using falsified documents to hire as many as 200 foreign workers.
The DOJ filed visa fraud charges against Pradyumna Kumar Samal on Friday, August 24, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. He is CEO of two technology firms in Redmond, Washington; one Divensi, an IT services firm, and the other Azimetry, a geospatial data processing company.
In its complaint, the DOJ asserts that Samal, 49, "knowingly" used a "bench and switch" tactic to get H-1B visas, which are meant to allow U.S. companies to hire highly skilled foreign professionals in industries where there are shortages of qualified American workers.
The government alleges that Samal, who was arrested at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport as he got off an international flight on Tuesday, fabricated projects that he claimed would require the short-term employment of foreign workers, going so far as to include fake letters from corporate clients to corroborate his claim.
The DOJ asserts that the projects did not actually exist and that the letters themselves had not been written by real clients. Once the worker was granted an H-1B visa, the DOJ alleges that they would be assigned to projects different than the ones initially listed on Samal's visa application.
"The forged documents included forged letters and fraudulent statements of work, which appeared as if they had been signed by senior executives," the DOJ said in a statement.
https://www.newsweek.com/h-1b-visa-...aud-nearly-200-h-1b-visa-applications-1097174
