Four Post-Infosys Strategies for Corporate Customers and Consultants to Minimize Immigration Risks

"Why did the U.S. Attorney drop civil and most criminal charges against Infosys when the prosecutor believed the company had engaged in widespread immigration fraud?  And why did Judge Martini throw a cold cocktail in the DOL's face in refusing to debar CAMO from further use of the immigration laws to sponsor temporary workers and green-card aspirants?

The simple answer is that immigration laws are complex and the bureaucratic rules interpreting them are too often ambiguous or impractical and therefore difficult to honor or to prosecute.

In the Infosys matter, prosecutors probably could not prove that "coding and programming" tasks, which ordinarily require an H-1B work visa, would be unlawful if performed by a business visitor under the so-called BILOH (B-1 in lieu of H-1) subcategory. In CAMO Technologies, the DOL could not persuade the court of its contention that the failure to post notices announcing the placement of H-1B workers at customer sites violated the agency's regulations.  CAMO maintained that the DOL regulations only required proof that the vendor had asked its customers to allow posting but that the customers refused.

The customer-vendor relationship is fraught with immigration perils for both parties, as I noted in two articles co-authored with Ted Chiappari,“New Corporate Procurement Strategy: Minimizing Immigration Risks From Service Providers," New York Law Journal (June 29, 2009) and "Professional Employer Organizations and Uncharted Immigration Risks," New York Law Journal (December, 2010). But despite the lack of clarity or business practicality from bureaucratically imposed visa mandates, employers and corporate vendors can take steps to avoid brand-damaging assaults by enforcement agents and costly probes by DOL investigators.  Here are four.... : - Angelo Paparelli, Nov. 3, 2013.