Class Action Alleges Meta Platforms Prefers to Hire H-1B Visa Holders Over American Citizens

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A proposed class action alleges Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook, has discriminated against U.S. citizens, green card holders and others by preferring to hire visa-dependent workers who the company can pay less. 

The 12-page lawsuit was filed in California by a naturalized U.S. citizen who alleges Facebook’s apparent preference to hire H-1B visa workers violates federal civil rights law and was implemented as a way to cut labor costs. 

“By law, H-1B visa workers must be paid by their employer at least as much as other individuals with similar experience and qualifications for the specific employment in question,” the complaint says. “Thus, the only reason Facebook would choose to hire and relegate certain positions to visa holders is to pay them less than American counterparts, an unlawful practice that is known in the industry as ‘wage theft.’ If Facebook in fact paid its visa workers the same as it paid American workers, it would have every incentive to hire, for all positions, the most qualified individual (regardless of his or her visa status).”

According to the case, Facebook hires visa workers directly from the labor market by way of its own recruiters and job postings. The suit says Facebook must sponsor visas for these individuals to allow them to legally work in the United States and “therefore retains considerable control over these employees.” Per the filing, an H-1B visa allows a foreign individual to work in the U.S. performing services in a specialty occupation for which there are insufficient American workers. 

The second method with which Facebook hires visa workers is through third-party vendors, the complaint relays. The plaintiff contends that Facebook’s preference for hiring and employing visa workers is “no secret” and has been a target for investigation for years by the U.S. Department of Justice. 

The lawsuit states that over the past nine years, Facebook has secured more than 20,000 H-1B visas for software engineers, research and data scientists, and engineering managers and that more than 15 percent of its stateside workforce is on an H-1B visa. 

According to the complaint, the plaintiff, an “experienced and skilled information technology professional,” was considered for jobs with Facebook on two occasions in 2020 but was not hired either time “because of the company’s systematic and continuous discriminatory scheme.” The plaintiff claims that in both instances, Facebook staffed the roles with an H-1B visa holder. 

The lawsuit looks to cover all individuals who are not visa holders and who applied with Facebook in the U.S. for the positions of software engineer, research scientist, data scientist, data engineer, engineering manager, product lifecycle management (PLM) architect and/or PLM analyst and were not hired. 

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