Increased Immigration Audits and How to Prepare

There appears to have been an increase in worksite visits from the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS).  This branch of DHS is tasked with combatting fraud, including performing routine audits of companies’ foreign national workers to verify the legitimacy of petitions and applications submitted to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.  Typically, FDNS officers want to verify that the worker is fulfilling the position duties reflected in the visa petition, at the site and wage specified and that supervisors are available to verify these particulars. Historically, these audits primarily investigated H-1B petitions.  However, more recently, we have seen an expansion of these audits to include L-1 intracompany transfers and H-2B temporary workers.  If the FDNS visits your worksite to discuss the particulars of a visa petition, please remain calm, understand that the visit could simply be an audit, and do the following:

1.       When the Immigration Officials arrive, we recommend that you greet the Officer and, if requested, show them the common areas of the workplace.  Typically, they will want to meet with the visa petition beneficiary, the Director of Talent & Culture (T&C) or Human Resources (HR), or the beneficiary’s immediate supervisor.

2.       Contact our office immediately.  We will advise on potential causes for the visit, as well as forward documents from our files pertaining to the request.

3.       If the Immigration Officials proceed to ask specific questions regarding an individual’s status or petition, those questions should be directed to the T&C or HR office.  T&C or HR should also provide the officer with basic information that they request regarding the individual in question such as contact information, start-date, current salary and recent paystubs, work schedule, living arrangements, day-to-day duties, and a brief description of the company’s operations.  Typically, follow up requests from a different FDNS officer for additional documentation are issued.  If more specifics are requested, please reach out to our office to ensure that we can coordinate our response.

As mentioned, it is important to remain calm and not assume the worst.  Answer the questions of the Immigration Official truthfully, while not answering outside of the scope of your position if you are not the signatory of a petition in question. 

As always, should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our office.