H-1B visa: East Bay company agrees to fine over alleged discrimination against U.S. workers
East Bay technology and staffing company
Epik Solutions
— a federal contractor certified as a “small disadvantaged business” — has agreed to pay a $72,000 fine after allegedly getting caught advertising jobs open only to foreign workers on
the controversial H-1B visa
.
“A top priority of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is protecting American workers from unlawful discrimination in favor of foreign visa workers,” said the department’s civil rights chief,
former San Francisco lawyer Harmeet Dhillon
, who was nominated for her position by President Donald Trump.
Epik said it cooperated with the department’s investigation into the matter, and does not acknowledge any wrongdoing,
according to the settlement
signed Tuesday.
The Pleasant Hill company “stated in numerous job advertisements that certain employment positions for which (it) was recruiting were restricted based on citizenship status, including restricting hiring to only applicants with H-1B visas, without legal justification,” the agreement said.
The H-1B has become a flashpoint in America’s immigration debates.
Silicon Valley technology giants rely heavily on the visa
to secure top global talent. But critics argue that the H-1B is used to undercut wages and in some cases,
replace U.S. workers with H-1B holders
. Major tech firms also
employ many lower-skill H-1B workers indirectly
through staffing companies.
Last year, Google received approval for some 5,300 new and continuing H-1Bs, according to
federal government data
. Meta received nearly 5,000 approvals, Apple close to 4,000, Intel about 2,500 and Oracle more than 2,000.
The
visa was at the center of a furor
in January just before Trump took office, after high-profile conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer attacked immigration to the U.S. by Indians, who hold the bulk of H-1B visas.
Trump in the past criticized the H-1B and
sought to reform it
, and his first administration dramatically boosted denial rates. But in January he, along with his tech advisor, Bay Area venture capitalist David Sacks, came out in support of the visa, joined by Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, which received more than 1,700 new and continuing H-1B approvals last year.
Federal records show Epik received a $500,000 contract in 2021 and a $1.2 million contract in 2022, both for managing government electronic records.
The certification as a small disadvantaged business under federal contracting rules indicates Epik represented itself as believing in good faith that it is owned and controlled by “one or more socially and economically disadvantaged individuals,” according to
the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations
.
Epik, and its CEO Ashish Kataria, did not immediately respond to questions about the basis for the company’s certification as disadvantaged. The Small Business Administration identifies many groups of people with foreign origins as socially disadvantaged. The agency defines economically disadvantaged people as “socially disadvantaged individuals whose ability to compete in the free enterprise system has been impaired due to diminished capital and credit opportunities as compared to others in the same or similar line of business who are not socially disadvantaged.”
The agreement with the Justice Department said Epik “shall not discriminate against applicants or employees based on citizenship status or national origin.” The company also agreed not to impose illegal discriminatory restrictions in job postings, recruitment activities, or consideration of job applicants for hiring or referral. Also, Epik employees involved in hiring and recruiting must take anti-discrimination training.
