I-9 E-Verify Immigration Compliance

By: Bruce Buchanan, Sebelist Buchanan Law


Cloudwick Technologies Inc., a California-based IT company, has agreed to pay $173,044 to 12 employees for violations of the federal H-1B foreign labor certification program after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD). Additionally, Cloudwick has also enrolled in an enhanced compliance agreement requiring them to hire an independent third-party monitor to help ensure future compliance.

WHD investigators found the company paid impacted employees well below the wage levels required under the H-1B program based on job skill level, and also made illegal deductions from workers’ salaries. As a result, some of the H-1B employees that Cloudwick brought from India with promised salaries of up to $8,300 per month instead received as little as $800 net per month.

The Trump administration is touting this agreement as another victory for “Buy American, Hire American.” Susana Blanco, Wage and Hour Division District Director in San Francisco stated “The intent of the H-1B foreign labor certification program is to help American companies find the highly skilled talent they need when they can prove that a shortage of U.S. workers exists. The resolution of this case demonstrates our commitment to safeguard American jobs, level the playing field for law-abiding employers, and protect guest workers from being paid less than they are legally owed.”

Cloudwick provides data solution services to major corporations nationwide, including American Express, Bank of America, Apple, Cisco, Comcast, Intuit, Safeway, Verizon, Visa, and many others.

Tags: h-1b visas, hire american, immigration, penalties, wage and hour

By Bruce Buchanan, Sebelist Buchanan Law PLLC



Infosys, an Indian IT services company, has agreed to pay $1 million to settle an investigation by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman into its visa violations. Infosys failed to obtain the appropriate visa for foreign workers employed in New York. Infosys’ foreign workers held temporary B-1 visas instead of H-1B work permits. Visitor (B-1) visas are not subject to a cap and are much easier to obtain than H-1B visas.

The foreign nationals, holding B-1 visas, were not paid the prevailing wage that H-1B workers must be paid. Thus, New York stated Infosys owed taxes on the higher wages that should have been paid to Infosys employees and that its employees were in violation of their visa terms. Infosys stated the investigation centered on alleged paperwork errors and denied wrongdoing.

As readers may recall, in 2013, Infosys paid $34 million to the federal government to resolve allegations that it committed visa fraud and I-9 violations. The New York matter was an outgrowth of the same misdeeds of Infosys.

Tags: b-1 visas, foreign workers, h-1b visas, prevailing wage, settle

By Bruce Buchanan, Sebelist Buchanan Law



After pleading guilty to fraud in relation to H-1B visas, New York immigration lawyer Loreto Kudera, and his wife, Hazel Kudera, the owner of several medical staffing agencies, were sentenced to two years probation and fined $25,000 each. Previously, they had forfeited $1 million.

Hazel Kudera owned multiple staffing agencies in New York that specialized in providing nurses to hospitals, outpatient and skilled nursing facilities. According to the government, Hazel and Loreto Kudera submitted at least 100 fraudulent applications to authorities, and profited from filing fees collected from the nurses and from the health care facilities that paid Hazel Kudera’s staffing agencies.

Hazel and Loreto Kudera falsely stated that the foreign nurses would be working in specialty occupations at prevailing wage rates when in actuality they were going to work as licensed practical nurses (LPNs) or registered nurses (RNs) at much lower rates of pay.

As part of the alleged scam, Hazel Kudera falsified a staffing agreement between NYC Healthcare Staffing and Dewitt Rehabilitation listing job positions that did not exist, such as clinical coordinator and health care quality assurance manager, in order to cover up the false job titles she provided to USICS.

Tags: fine, h-1b visas, sentenced, uscis, visa fraud