WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced several measures to control the H-1B work visa fraud and abuse.

Increased Onsite Visits by FBI

As of 2015 around 25k random onsite visits are being done annually nationwide . After this announcement, the number is expected to go significantly higher may be up to 75-100k.

Onsite visit will have an FBI official coming to your work location to collect information on your work, salary, employer and pass it back to USCIS.

USCIS Onsite visits will focus on

• Small US Employers (like small Desi consulting firms) who information is not publicly available.
• H1B Dependent employer - 50% or more employees on H1B visa.
• Companies recruiting the employees at third party Work locations or at a client site.

Impact on Indian IT Professionals

Most of them IT Outsourcing MNCs and Small desi firms in USA will place their employees at third party client location. Currently onsite visits by FBI are in place since around 2009. The new amendment may let FBI to check whether the employee-employer relationship is being established properly or not while the employee is placed at third party site.

FBI will also check the efforts made by the H1B employer to hire an American first.

Here is the complete USCIS announcement: https://www.uscis.gov/news/news-rele...raud-and-abuse

Those who work for full-time to real companies may not see issues with the change.

Bottomline: Working for Desi employers/Consulting firms is no longer safe.