H1B Visa Bond Agreement Problem

USA H1B Visa
1

Hi,

I am stuck in a problem and i will be glad if you could help me regarding this.

My company (IT services company, MNC) applied for my “H1B Visa” in the first week of April 2012. The petition got approved by USCIS. If the interview goes fine, then i will have to travel in the month of October.

My company made me sign a document/bond agreement which states that i will have to work for my company for the next 2 years in USA (i.e. 2 years from the time of start of my employment in USA). If i decide to leave within 2 years, i will have to pay an amount of $8,000. My company states in the bond agreement that it has invested $8,000 to apply/process my h1b visa and it is liable to take that $8,000 if i leave within that 2 year service period.

Because of some personal reasons i am planning to quit my job altogether and go back to my hometown. I have absolutely nothing against the company. Infact i love working for my company.

  1. What should i do now?
  2. Is such kind of bond valid?
  3. The bond paper was not a stamp paper. It was just a set of white papers with all these details. Would applying signatures here be valid?
  4. $8,000 (the bond amount) is a lot of money. It is almost my one year salary. I am in no position to pay that amount of money. Infact i dont even have that amount of money with me
  5. Should i tell the company about this upfront and try to negotiate the bond amount? I doubt they will want to negotiate. They have invested a lot of money on my H1b visa.
  6. Should i just abscond?
  7. Should i tell the company my problems and also that i will work in USA for only 1 year and quit after that. Tell them that i wont be paying any bond money. Instead of 2 year service, i will do only 1 year service. Will they be fine with this?

I am in a lot of confusion. If possible please help me out of this.

2

There is nothing called BOND to hold an employee. It is mutual agreement, employer spends on your visa process, travel expense, intial setup in US, initially before you start working for them. No need to worry much about that. Some people quit the company immediately when they enter US. This could incure a loss and most people do that due to their personal reasons. To avoid that and threten that they get signature like this. You can move out of the company any time. But that is not your wish. Also when you are comming to home town after a long service, they will not create any issues.

Have a good relationship with ur empoyer… Employers have bad experience in losing people after they bring them to US. this is reflection of that.

No need to worry about. Sign the bond and go ahead.

It will not create any problem for you…

Thanks

Vivek

3

Thanks a lot for the reply.

I have decided that i will work for 1 year in USA and then quit the job and come back to my hometown.
By doing so, i would have given them 1 year of service and i am hoping that they would not feel cheated (because they have invested so much money on my visa).
I am not going to tell all this to the company right now.
By doing so i am hoping that the company will not be chasing me for the bond amount once i quit.

Alos let me know if i understood you right.
You are saying that: Legally there is nothing called as bond. They just do this to threaten us. I can pull out anytime i want and not have to pay the bond amount ($8,000). Are you very sure about this?
Basically my question is that, even if i decide to quit the company right now, i will not have to pay the $8,000 amount right?

Thanks in advance.