Indian H-1B worker alleges he paid $100,000 to employer to keep visa; expert points to deeper flaws in visa system

Speaking exclusively to Financial Express Digital, immigration attorney Mithii Jaiswal said the allegations, if proven in court, point to a deeper problem within parts of the H-1B system. “What we are seeing in the Meesala case, if the allegations are ultimately proven, is not an aberration. It is the visible tip of a largely submerged problem,” she said.

Details of Meesala’s case

According to a report by The American Bazaar, Meesala entered the US on a student visa and completed his master’s degree in 2023. He later secured employment that led to sponsorship under the H-1B visa programme, which allows US companies to hire foreign professionals in specialised fields.

The lawsuit states that Meesala accepted a job at a Texas-based company led by Indian American businessman Sai Jitender Kalagra because he believed the position offered him a path to permanent residency and eventually US citizenship.

According to court filings cited by The American Bazaar, Meesala’s problems started soon after he joined the company. He was allegedly placed on the “bench”, a term commonly used in the technology industry for workers who do not have active client assignments.

The complaint alleges that despite not having a project assignment, Meesala had to effectively fund his own salary and make large payments to preserve his employment and immigration status. The lawsuit claims company officials demanded money from him in exchange for maintaining his position and refused to provide pay stubs unless additional payments were made.

Pay records often play a crucial role for H-1B workers. Employees generally require these documents to transfer to another employer, renew immigration status or prove compliance with visa requirements.

The lawsuit alleges that company officials understood the importance of these records and used control over them to pressure Meesala. According to the complaint, he eventually paid around $8,800 in cash because he feared losing his immigration status.

The filing also alleges intimidation. Meesala claims company representatives threatened to report him to ICE and also threatened his father after he objected to the arrangement. Banias Law, the immigration litigation firm representing him, has alleged that the defendants owe him at least $97,248.94 in unpaid wages and coerced payments.

The allegations remain unproven in court. Neither the company nor Kalagra had publicly responded to the claims at the time of reporting by The American Bazaar.

How common are such allegations in H-1B system?

Attorney Jaiswal said many cases involving coercion, unlawful fee demands and immigration-related threats never reach a courtroom because workers fear losing their legal status and future in the United States.

“Workers often endure conditions they would never otherwise accept because they understand that their immigration status, future green card prospects, and years of educational and financial investment depend upon a single employer. Meesala’s willingness to litigate is itself unusual,” she said.

She said US courts have previously dealt with similar allegations. In David v. Signal International LLC, foreign workers alleged recruitment fraud, excessive fees, immigration-related coercion, forced labour and trafficking-related misconduct. The case became one of the most significant labour-trafficking cases in modern US history.

Jaiswal also referred to Panwar v. Access Therapies, Inc., where a federal court allowed trafficking-related claims to proceed after an immigrant worker alleged that visa dependency and financial penalties effectively prevented him from leaving employment.

“These cases demonstrate that allegations involving immigration-based coercion are not new to US courts, even though they remain significantly underreported,” she said.

Jaiswal said there is no ambiguity in US law on employers demanding payments from H-1B workers to maintain employment or visa status. “Under the Immigration and Nationality Act and Department of Labor regulations, employers are prohibited from passing many sponsorship-related costs onto H-1B workers,” she said.

She added that employers generally remain responsible for paying the required wage even when workers do not have active project assignments. “The worker remains in H-1B status and the wage obligation continues regardless of whether there is a billable project,” she said.

Jaiswal spoke about an earlier enforcement action in which the US Department of Labor recovered about $85,000 in back wages from a Texas-based IT consulting company after finding that an H-1B worker had been unlawfully benched without pay. “If the allegations in the Meesala complaint are ultimately proven, they would raise serious concerns under both immigration and labour law,” she said.

“The allegations go beyond a conventional wage dispute because they involve claims that payments were allegedly demanded in order to maintain employment and preserve immigration status,” she added. 

Does H-1B programme create a power imbalance?

Jaiswal said the dependence of H-1B workers on employer sponsorship creates an inherent imbalance. “Absolutely! The H-1B visa, by design, ties a worker’s legal ability to remain and work in the United States to a sponsoring employer. That is not a bug that bad actors exploit. It is the architecture of the programme itself,” she said.

She said the dependence becomes even more severe for Indian nationals because of long employment-based green card backlogs. “Many workers are not merely protecting their current job. They are protecting a decade or more of immigration investment involving a U.S. degree, OPT employment, H-1B sponsorship, and a place in the green card queue,” she said.

Jaiswal referred to several cases involving foreign workers, including David v. Signal International LLC, Panwar v. Access Therapies, Inc. and Nunag-Tanedo v. East Baton Rouge Parish School Board. She said these cases recognised how immigration dependency and financial pressures can create conditions conducive to forced labour.

“These cases reflect a broader recognition that immigration vulnerability can create a significant power imbalance between workers and sponsoring employers,” she said.

Jaiswal said US law provides several protections for workers facing exploitation. The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division can investigate H-1B wage violations, recover unpaid wages and impose penalties on employers. Workers can also pursue civil claims involving unpaid wages, retaliation, trafficking and forced labour.

She said the Trafficking Victims Protection Act provides both criminal penalties and a private right of action when conduct rises to the level of trafficking or forced labour. “The law protects workers more robustly on paper than it often does in practice. The first step, consulting a lawyer while your employer controls your immigration future and, according to the allegations, has threatened immigration consequences, is often the hardest thing a person in this situation will ever do,” she said.

“The system depends heavily on workers taking that step. Until there are more proactive enforcement mechanisms and government-initiated investigations rather than worker-initiated complaints, these structural vulnerabilities are likely to remain,” she added. 

Disclaimer: The allegations described in this report are based on court filings by Rishikesh Raj Meesala and remain unproven. The court has not ruled on the merits of the case, and the defendants had not publicly responded to the allegations at the time of publication. Financial Express could not independently verify the claims made in the lawsuit.