Trump administration to launch probe into Cognizant over H1B visa ‘fraud’

The US Labour Department has said it will launch a probe into H-1 B visa abuse by several companies, including Indian IT giant Cognizant.

Speaking on Fox Business on Wednesday morning, Labour Department inspector general Anthony D’Esposito said that it would be the most aggressive action against foreign labour fraud.

“We are going to take an aggressive action, what we believe is probably the most aggressive action against foreign labour fraud by an inspector general. We have already started to issue dozens of subpoenas. We are going to make sure that we track down every lead. We have whistleblowers talking about some of the biggest companies like Cognizant, who have been sort of in the chatter of issues like PREM and H1B visas,” D’Esposito said.

The inspector general said that he would work closely with the US President ’s Fraud Task Force, which is headed by Vice President , to exhaust every lead in the probe.

“The Fraud Task Force has been very clear. Vice President Vance has said there is no fraud too small and there is no fraud too large. It is another example where fraud is fueling violent crime. Much of the fraud in visa and human trafficking that we see when it comes to foreign labour is tied to cartels,” he added.

At the time, Staff Secretary Will Scharf said the order would establish a new task force aimed at rooting out that fraud and returning potentially billions, tens of billions, or even hundreds of billions of dollars to the American taxpayer. Scharf said it would launch a whole-of-government approach to rooting out the very serious problem of fraud in federally funded programs around the country.

The task force is being chaired by Vance, with Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson serving as vice chairman.