Amid a dismal climate over H-1B scrutiny in the US, a senior immigration attorney has now flagged the risk of intensified raids by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which could target employers recruiting H-1B holders in Houston.
Daniel N Ramirez, Employment and Litigation Partner at Monty & Ramirez LLP in Houston, took to LinkedIn to share his concern about the impending raids.
“We are hearing reports through the immigration legal community (AILA) that USCIS’s Fraud Detection Division will conduct large-scale H-1B site inspections in the Houston area later this month and into February,” he wrote.
‘These visits are unannounced’
Ramirez added that the impending visits are unannounced and designed to verify that the employer is complying with the H-1B application submitted to the government, including confirming whether the company is paying the required prevailing wage and whether the employee is performing the required job duties.
“If USCIS identifies red flags, they will refer the matter to ICE for further action,” he further wrote.
Ramirez cautions H-1B employers, suggests 3 solutions
Ramirez suggested a couple of ways for H-1B employers to safeguard their employees’ rights.
Ramirez said employers should establish standard operating procedure (SOPs) to designate a trained person (and backups) to manage any visit by the USCIS. He said employers should prepare a “site inspection” binder with the necessary information to support the company’s compliance with the H-1B requirements. Thirdly, employers must audit the H-1B issues before USCIS arrives, Ramirez said.
‘Massive H-1B fraud in Texas’
His post comes days after former Republican lawmaker and US President Donald Trump’s ex-ally Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed that a “massive H-1B fraud” is taking place in Texas.
Greene, who exited US Congress earlier this month, shared a TikTok video of an influencer who claimed that as many as 700,000 H-1B applicants were brought into Texas in 2025.
The influencer claimed that these applicants had been approved by an immigration attorney identified as Chand Parvathaneni and they run fraudulent businesses like tech firms out of residential single-family income households in cities like Fresco and Irving, while also receiving funding from the government.