My best friend is in the US from Brazil. She started working at a small family business 7 years ago and applied for her Green Card through the company 1.5 years ago. Because her H1B had expired she wasn’t legally allowed to work until her work authorization was approved.
So the small family owned company allowed her to work even though she didn’t have an authorization and they said they’d pay her for the work later. So for 1.5 years she worked for them without getting paid. During that time she also did not have a valid license and they would send her all over the city with deliveries, running errands, etc.
When her work authorization finally came through last month the family didn’t say a word about the 1.5 years of pay they said they’d pay her! And then this week they fired her! They said they would pay her back over the next year BUT that they weren’t going to pay her back the full amount and were subtracting out the lawyer fees for the green card as well as her “artificially inflated salary” to look good to the US government so her application didn’t look fishy.
Additionally even though they fired her they made her write a resignation letter so being fired doesn’t “go on her record”.
It seems like the family has all the power here because technically she wasn’t allowed to work but is there anything she can do to get the money she deserves?? I mean this is almost like trafficking? She was tricked into thinking one thing and is getting g another