[rwallace]

Calling it fraud suggests that; 20 years in prison is an excessive punishment just for stealing money. But H1B is actually a large fraction of the way to slavery, and slavery is a worse crime than murder. So in this case I'd be fine with them getting the full 20 years.

[olalonde]

You are comparing independent consultants/contractors to slaves, seriously?

[rwallace]

Last I checked the terms of H1B, workers under it were not independent by a very long shot. Not outright slaves, granted, but the term 'indentured servitude' could reasonably be used.

[steego]

Mislabeling the current situation as "slavery" or "indentured servitude" won't help your cause. You can say these regulations create the incentives and opportunity to exploit immigrants by effectively making it difficult for them to shop for a better paying job.

[grok2]

I see it as voluntary servitude in the hopes of making a lot of money. AFAIK nothing stops the employee from simply walking away (i.e. going back to his home-country).

[rwallace]

Unless you live in North Korea, nearly any unjust law can in principle be avoided by 'simply' leaving the country. In practice, this is a sufficiently costly step that we still correctly say that unjust laws infringe on people's freedom.