[zhenyakovalyov]

international companies sometimes relocate their overseas staff to work in the US because a job may require very specialised knowledge difficult to get elsewhere. the worker may not agree to take the L1 visa for various reasons and would ask for H1B.

while such worker is indeed somewhat cheaper, the cost of not filling the position while they go through the legal process of obtaining the visa makes it on par.

so it is not all fraud.

[burnte]

Any time you go through motions to fulfill regulatory requirements that you have no intention of ACTUALLY abiding by is fraud. "difficult to get elsewhere" is not a sufficient reason to commit fraud. In fact, the regulations are explicitly there to make sure you can't just bring cheap people all around the world and lower wages elsewhere. If it's difficult to drag workers around, that's the entire point.