The coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns have moved many white-collar roles to Work-from-Home, and many H1-B visa holders in the US are also working from home. Therefore, federal immigration officers are starting to make home visits to ensure that employers and foreign workers on the H-1B visa are complying with the terms of the work permits, Bay Area immigration lawyers are reporting.
According to San Francisco Immigration Attorney Kelli Duehning, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officials sometimes come to location of companies that hire H-1B to confirm compliance with visa regulations. Now, there are reports that immigration officials are likely to make visits to “home offices,” of employees working from home. Duehning was quoted in San Jose Mercury News saying:
“There’s something different about an officer from the federal government coming to your workplace than coming to your home. It should be your sanctuary. And now it’s not even safe for them.”
The home visits appear to be a new development, with immigration officials “catching up on these new pandemic practices,” Duehning said.
Employers her firm works for have reported that Citizenship and Immigration has been emailing H-1B holders to set up meetings at their homes or offices, but Duehning said she knows of a worker in Mountain View and one in Redwood City who were not contacted in advance before an immigration officer showed up at their door with questions.
Duehning said that when an H-1B worker shifts to remote work that’s not within commuting distance from their designated office, the employer should inform Citizenship and Immigration. The home visits appear to be intended to “confirm that employers followed the rules and are actually reporting if an employee is no longer working in the location they had previously reported.”
Citizenship and Immigration declined to say when it started home visits, for what reasons, how many it has conducted or where. Agency spokesman Matthew Bourke said the agency’s power to conduct work site inspections to verify visa holders’ eligibility and compliance with the law “is critical to the integrity of the H–1B program to detect and deter fraud and noncompliance.” On-site inspections are only conducted at locations that employers have designated as work sites, Bourke said.
Other links and references
- White House.gov – The Trump Administration Is Taking Action to Tighten Foreign Worker Visa Requirements and Protect American Workers
- Department of Homeland Security and Department of Labor Rule Restores Integrity to H-1B Visa Program
- US Department of Labor – Fact Sheet #62J: What does “place of employment” mean?
- Trump Administration’s immigration order could halt H-1B visa holders from entering US for few months