I am on H1B visa. My company in US asked me to take a training course
at their US office for a week<date1> to <date2>. But, I planned for an
unpaid vacation to visit my home country during this time. Since the
same training course is offered in my company offshore(home country)
office, I prefered to take this training at my home country office
while I am on vacation. So, my company deployed me to offshore office.
During this training period, offshore office compensated me in my home
country currency at home country prevailing wage(way below USD
prevailing wage). But my US office did not pay me during this training
period in US.
My question is does my US office must pay me in United States as per
law? (or) As per law, do I need to get paid at US prevailing wage rate
in my home country? Your legal advice is very much important, and
please answer my question considering US Laws of immigration.

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Clarification of Question by breezy_2go-ga on 21 May 2005 08:31 PDT

Hi,
Thank you for your information.

The only contract I know is H1B contract with INS. For your
clarification, my company is not so big (about 500 employees globally)
and to my understanding, my company attorney is not well experienced
professional attorney and am not sure if this attorney is completely
aware of immigration laws. Yes, I agree that my company made a favor
to me to take this training at my home country, but this training is a
madatory training and I was instructed by the company to take this
training related to my Job. After taking this training, my company got
certified.(so company is more beneficial). Yes, I agreed that I take
this training at my home country, but we never had a discussion about
how I get paid while I am getting trainined in my home country.
But, as per Law, I am productive to the US company during this
training period in my home country, so I should get paid. But I don't
know the Law about where to get paid? US in USD at US prevailing wage
rate (or) Home country at Home country currency at home country
prevailing wage rate (or) Home country at Home country currency at US
prevailing wage rate? What does the INS or US immigration Law says?

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Clarification of Question by breezy_2go-ga on 21 May 2005 16:10 PDT

This is not about I filing a case on my company. This is the INS
query, INS is asking why I did not get paid in US while getting
trained in my home country, as per law.

I would like to know what is that INS law, which says I should get
paid in US while I am taking training outside US?

Hi,
Here is information from the Immigration Service about H-1B visas.

http://uscis.gov/graphics/howdoi/h1b.htm

To answer your question someone would have to know what your contract says.
My personal feeling is that a US company large enough to have training
programs abroad as well as in the States is probably so big that its
personnel department   has the experience and legal background to know
what it is doing  - and also to be impartial.  Since you were on
unpaid vacation, the company did you a favor by agreeing to your
taking the training in your home country.  If the training was a week
out of the period that you had initially planned for your vacation, it
would seem even more clear that you could not expect payment at the US
rate, since you were expecting to be on unpaid vacation for that
period.
Furthermore, I expect that you agreed in advance to the proposal of
taking the training "at home", perhaps not understanding that you
would not be compensated at your US salary rate, but it is most likely
that this was covered in some way.
I hope the training was beneficial to you.

US immigration Law says nothing about such things
and since no US immigration Law was  broken -
 INS has no reason to care either.
 
  If you will complain,
 company could argue that compensation was less since cost
 of living is less in the home country.
 
 Unless you have specific written contract about that compensation,
  you are likely going to loose - and more than just the case.

HI again,
Thanks for the clarification.  Since you are satisfied with the way
the company handled things, I would suggest one of the following:

1)  You write the company, passing on the request from INS and asking
the company to reply, mentioning in your letter that you were
satisfied with what happened, and send a copy to INS;

2)  You write INS, explaining that you were on unpaid vacation for x
weeks, and the training during a week of that at local pay was a
satisfactory arrangement, asking INS to request further information
from the company, if needed, again with a copy to the company.

Whatever the law says, the employer bears the responsibility.  If the
law really does require you to have been paid your US salary, the
company can easily repair that.
As you pointed out, the training was very beneficial for the company;
it will take care of the matter.

As you know, this is no legal or professional advice (see disclaimer below).