H-2B Visa Fraud Indictment in North Carolina

"n 2008, Stanley Porter started a small company called Winterscapes LLC with a fake purpose: bringing in 150 foreign workers under the H-2B visa program to be snow makers in the mountains of North Carolina.  But some of the workers didn’t even know what a snow maker was.  Once they arrived, most moved to landscaping companies that were clients of Porter’s and had not gone through the proper application process for hiring foreign workers.  Porter pleaded guilty to visa fraud and money laundering last year.  But the case has now ensnared a much larger firm, In­ternational Labor Management , which for years has been a major player in the business of connecting U.S. employers with foreign workers for seasonal jobs.  And federal officials say the company has been gaming the visa system for years, helping businesses skirt the law.  In a 41-count indictment filed late last month in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, N.C., federal officials accused International Labor’s founder, Craig Eury Jr., and his daughter, Sarah Farrell, of falsifying applications to obtain more worker visas than were needed and then dispensing them to companies that had not qualified to use the foreign employees."