H-1B provisions are designed to help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce by authorizing the employment of foreign nationals. The law establishes certain standards in order to protect similarly employed U.S. workers from being adversely affected by the employment of the nonimmigrant workers, as well as to protect the H-1B workers themselves.

The H-1B program responsibilities are divided among various agencies:  the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employment Training Administration (ETA); the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS); the U.S. Department of State (DOS); and the DOL Employment Standards Administration’s Wage and Hour Division (WH).

Under the H-1B program, WH is responsible for ensuring that workers are receiving the wages disclosed on the Labor Condition Application (LCA) and are working in the occupation and at the location specified. WH may initiate H-1B-related investigations through one (1) of four (4) processes:

• Aggrieved party complaints;
• Credible Source investigations;
• Secretary-certified investigations; and
• Random investigations of willful violators.

The audit is to ensure proper compliance surrounding a Labor Condition Application (LCA) and a Public Access File (PAF) based upon one of the above grounds.