H-1B Site Visits: FDNS Inspections and the Evidence They Test

A site visit is a factual audit of a document. Someone from the USCIS Fraud Detection and National Security directorate arrives at a worksite, usually without notice, holding the Form I-129 petition, and checks whether what the petition said is true: that the employer exists and operates, that the named worker is there, that the job is the job described, and that the wage being paid is the wage promised.

Most visits are routine and end without consequence. The ones that go badly almost always involve a gap between the petition and reality that developed after approval — a worker moved to a different client, a role that drifted, hours that were cut, a wage that lagged. None of those are discovered by reading the file. They are discovered by walking into the building.

Who conducts the visit, and why this employer

Site visits are run under an administrative verification program that covers H-1B, L-1, and religious worker petitions, and they are typically unannounced. Officers are not criminal investigators making an arrest; they are gathering facts and preparing a report that goes back to the adjudicating office.

Selection is partly random and partly targeted. Since 2017 the agency has said it focuses on employers whose business information cannot be verified through commercially available data, employers that are H-1B dependent, and employers that place workers at third-party sites. Complaints and prior findings also drive visits. As of mid-2026, the H-1B modernization rule that took effect in January 2025 codified the agency's site-visit authority and made refusal to cooperate a stated ground for denial or revocation, which removed a question employers used to argue about.

Visits happen at different points. Some occur while a petition is pending, in which case the report feeds directly into the adjudication. Most occur after approval, sometimes long after. A visit can also be triggered by an amended petition that reveals a change the agency wants to see for itself.

What the officer is verifying

The officer works through a short list of claims, each drawn from the petition and its supporting documents. The list is not secret, and an employer that can answer it in five minutes will have an uneventful visit.

The wage question is where labor and immigration compliance meet. The certified labor condition application fixes the required wage against the prevailing wage determination for the occupation and area, and the obligation to pay begins when the worker enters employment. Benching — keeping a worker unpaid between projects — is a Department of Labor violation independent of anything USCIS decides, and a site visit that uncovers it usually produces referrals in both directions.

The visit itself

Handle the visit as a defined procedure rather than an improvisation. The receptionist should not be the person deciding what happens, and the worker should not be interviewed alone in a corridor because nobody knew who to call.

• A written front-desk protocol naming who to contact when a government officer arrives, with a backup name.
• Instructions to record the officer's name, agency, and contact details, and to request identification.
• A designated company representative who greets the officer and stays present for interviews where permitted.
• Immediate notice to counsel; officers will often speak with counsel by phone during the visit.
• A folder, kept current, with the approval notice, the certified labor condition application, the current job description, and recent pay records for each sponsored worker at that site.
• A short briefing for sponsored employees on their own job title, duties, worksite, salary, and supervisor.
• A written note of what was asked, what was produced, and who said what, made the same day.

Employees should answer honestly about their own work and should not guess. The most damaging answers in site visits are speculative — a worker who cannot state their own salary, or who describes the job in terms that do not resemble the petition, creates a discrepancy the officer must report even when nothing is wrong. Preparation is not coaching. It is making sure that people know the facts of their own employment.

Verify before relying: officers may ask for records the employer is not required to hand over on the spot. Producing documents is often the fastest way to close an issue, but the decision should be made with counsel, not at the front desk under time pressure.

Third-party placements and worksite changes

Placing an H-1B worker at a client site raises two distinct problems. The first is the petition: the sponsoring employer must show a genuine offer of employment and the right to control the work, supported by contracts, statements of work, and an itinerary of assignments. The second is the labor condition application, which is tied to a place of employment. A move outside the area of intended employment is a material change requiring an amended petition filed before the worker starts at the new location — the rule established in the agency's 2015 precedent on worksite changes and applied consistently since.

Employers regularly get this wrong in a specific way: they file the amendment after the move, believing the filing itself cures the gap. It does not cure the period the worker spent at an uncovered site, and a site visit at the new location is precisely how that period comes to light. The safer practice is to treat every client assignment change as an immigration event and to run it past the calendar before the worker relocates.

Remote and hybrid work has complicated this further. A worker's home can be a place of employment for labor condition application purposes, and a home in a different metropolitan area than the office raises the same amendment question as a client site. Employers who converted to distributed work without revisiting their filings often have exposure they have never examined. The corporate-control questions here parallel those in our brief on L-1A and L-1B intracompany transfers, where the employer's relationship to the work is also the central evidentiary issue.

What follows an adverse report

The officer's report goes to the adjudicator. Where it raises a discrepancy, the consequences escalate in a predictable order. A request for evidence asks the employer to reconcile the finding. A notice of intent to deny or a notice of intent to revoke states that the agency plans to act and gives an opportunity to rebut. Revocation ends the approval and, for a worker relying on it, ends the authorized employment.

Beyond the individual case, findings have institutional effects. A pattern of discrepancies affects later filings from the same employer, including how much deference an adjudicator gives to prior approvals. Wage and posting findings can be referred to the Department of Labor's enforcement side, where remedies include back wages and, in serious cases, debarment from the foreign labor programs. Findings touching on who is actually employed at a site can also surface verification problems addressed in our brief on I-9 audits and E-Verify.

Responding well is a documentary exercise, not an argumentative one. The techniques that work — reconciling the record item by item, attaching primary proof, and answering the question actually asked — are the same ones set out in our brief on responding to an RFE or NOID.

Questions the desk gets

Can we refuse the visit or insist on rescheduling?

An employer can decline to admit an officer without a warrant, but the calculation has changed. The rule effective in January 2025 identifies failure to cooperate as a ground for denying or revoking a petition, so refusal now carries a direct adjudicative cost. A brief, courteous delay to reach counsel is generally accommodated. A flat refusal is a decision with consequences, and it should be made deliberately rather than by a receptionist.

The worker moved to a different client six weeks ago. What now?

Determine first whether the new location is inside the same area of intended employment. If it is not, an amended petition was required before the move, and the gap should be assessed with counsel rather than papered over. Filing the amendment promptly is normally the right step, together with a factual record of when the assignment changed and why the filing lagged.

Does an approved petition mean the facts have already been accepted?

Approval reflects the record as it stood at adjudication. A site visit tests whether that record still describes reality, and it can also surface facts the agency never saw. Employers sometimes assume approval settles the question of specialty occupation or worksite permanently. It settles nothing about conditions after approval, which is exactly the period a post-approval visit examines.

Do site visits happen for other categories?

Yes. The verification program covers L-1 and religious worker petitions as well, and the same evidentiary logic applies: the officer compares the petition's claims about the organization, the role, and the location against what is observable. Employers with sponsorship programs spanning several categories should build one worksite protocol rather than separate ones, and many do this with an H-1B visa attorney reviewing the file set annually.

Where the risk actually sits

The risk is drift. Petitions describe a job at a moment; companies reorganize, clients change, teams move buildings, titles get rewritten, and nobody tells the immigration file. Two years later an officer arrives and the file describes a job that no longer exists in that form.

The control is a quarterly reconciliation. For every sponsored worker, confirm four facts against the petition: worksite address, job title and duties, salary, and supervisor. Where any has changed, decide whether an amendment is required and document the decision even when the answer is no. That record is worth more during a visit than any explanation offered on the day.

Keep the labor side aligned at the same time. The certified application, the posting record, and the public access file belong to the same compliance system as the petition, and the recruitment discipline described in our brief on PERM recruitment compliance reflects the same principle: contemporaneous records survive inspection, reconstructed ones do not. More sits on the Immigration Strategy & Status desk.