MANHATTAN (CN) - Care Worldwide, a visa sponsor, charged foreign workers thousands of dollars in "training fees" for nonexistent jobs, put them to forced labor and threatened to have them deported if they complained, three Filipina college graduates claim in court.
The workers - Isidra Tuburan, Rosalinda Quilario and Wendolen Almonte - sued Raina Massey, Jerry Sona, and Care Worldwide, in Federal Court.
Massey, who claims to be a medical doctor, owns and runs Care Worldwide, a New Jersey clinical research site management company that purports to sponsor H-1B visa applicants for clinical research positions, according to the complaint.
The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa which allows companies to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations.
Sona, Massey's brother, runs the company's Manhattan office, the workers say.
"This action arises out of a scheme by which defendants defrauded the plaintiffs through false representations on immigration visa petitions and other immigration documents, and perpetuated said fraudulent scheme by threats of deportation and abuse of the legal process," the complaint states. "Plaintiffs, who are nationals of the Philippines, possess at least a bachelor's degree in the science or medical fields. Individual and corporate defendants induced the plaintiffs into relying on their representations that they would be sponsored as H1-B beneficiaries and made employees of corporate defendant, after they had collected immigration application fees and/or training fees from plaintiffs."
Massey falsely claimed that Care Worldwide was financially stable and needed to fill several medical and clinical research positions, according to the complaint.
The plaintiffs claim that Massey and Care Worldwide made them pay their own immigration application and attorney fees, charged them thousands of dollars in "training fees," and lied to the immigration service and the U.S. Department of Labor about their proposed positions and salaries.
They say that after their applications were approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Massey delayed giving them work, assigned them recruiter and marketing duties instead of clinical research work, and asked them to pay their own salaries.
"Defendants knew at the outset that plaintiffs would not be employed as clinical/medical researchers, the H-1B positions plaintiffs were sponsored for, by defendant Care Worldwide, Inc.," the complaint states. "After the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved the immigration petitions on behalf of the plaintiffs, defendants advanced their scheme of defrauding the plaintiffs by providing them advice that they needed to undergo training before they could start work as clinical or medical researchers and by further requiring them to pay training fees.
"Defendants also threatened plaintiffs that if they did not pay the fees charged to them as training fees, and/or to continue working for defendants, defendants would cancel or withdraw their H-1B sponsorship, and that they would be deported to their native country. As a result of this campaign of fraud and coercion, plaintiffs remained in constant fear of the defendants and believed they had no choice but to obey their orders and pay the charged fees and/or continue working."
The plaintiffs, who live in Queens and Nassau counties, say they have bachelor's degrees in biology, pharmacy and nursing.
They say they learned of Massey's purported H-1B sponsorships from New York employment agencies and from unidentified people who advertised the clinical research positions to language and business schools with foreign students.
