Facebook accused by Trump administration of H-1B visa abuse
The Trump administration is accusing Facebook in a lawsuit of discriminating against U.S. workers in favor of foreigners with special visas to fill more than 2,600 high-paying jobs.
The Justice Department announced the suit Thursday, alleging that the tech giant refused to recruit, consider or hire qualified and available U.S. workers for the positions that the social medial giant reserved for temporary visa holders. Facebook sponsored the visa holders for “green cards” authorizing them to work permanently.
“Facebook intentionally created a hiring system in which it denied qualified U.S. workers a fair opportunity to learn about and apply for jobs” that it instead sought to channel to temporary visa holders, the Justice Department said in a news release.
The positions at issue offered an average salary of around $156,000. The department is seeking unspecified civil penalties and back pay on behalf of U.S. workers denied employment.
More must-read tech coverage from Fortune:
- Robinhood’s next adventure: Stealing market share from the rich
- Why the power to change the female-founder double standard rests with VCs
- Quantum computing is entering a new dimension
- How Chinese phonemaker Xiaomi conquered India—and outperformed Apple
- Google ethics researcher’s departure renews worries the company is silencing whistleblowers