Know immigration laws before hiring
By Danis Foster | Sun, 03/15/2009 - 01:45
Many businesses in the US provide temporary work visas to foreign workers and assign them specialized positions like information technology professional, financial managers, business analysts, architects, engineers and health care professionals, and many other key positions.
During the process of sponsoring, employers may not be fully aware of the commitment that is imposed upon them by federal authorities in case there is any change in the employment relationship. For instance, some temporary work visas, say H-1B, require that notification be sent to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in case the worker is terminated prior to completion of the authorized period stay. And if this happens, the employer might have to offer to pay the cost incurred to send the worker back to his or her nation.
If a worker under the H-1B visa is on nonproductive status or has faced reduction in pay in periods of no work or lesser work, it is known as “benching”. But here, the employer placing the H-1B visa worker in such situation must continue to pay the worker exactly what he or she used to get as pay before the unpaid leave, according to the US Department of Labor.
The employer is however not required to pay anything to the worker if he or she has willingly asked for the temporary status due to reasons not related for employment. The employer also does not need to pay the worker if proper steps are taken to result in an authentic termination. But in case a genuine termination does not take place, the employer may well be legally responsible for civil money penalties and may need to pay wages of the worker from the time he or she has not been paid. The employer may also be banned from sponsoring foreign worker in future.
In a case not long ago, an employer who didn’t paid H-1B worker the required wage during low work period had to finally pay over $39,000 wages of the past, with added interest.
The case also made sure that if an H-1B worker requests for back wages from the time he has been sitting on bench till the employer initiated a legal termination, the employer may have to pay extra back wages.
Many employers throughout the United States are currently reducing their workforce in order to deal with the financial crisis and are unintentionally doing acts that violate the immigration laws of the US. As evident in the case stated above, this could result in unfavorable financial consequences.
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