Hundreds of laid-off Meta employees on US work visas are in a panic after getting no responses from a dedicated email hotline set up by the company to guide them. Many are concerned that if they don’t get a new job soon, they will be asked to leave the US Others who were traveling abroad when the layoffs occurred are no longer sure they can return home here. .
“There is no support. There is radio silence,” a former Meta employee with a visa, who emailed the hotline three times after being fired, told BuzzFeed News. (BuzzFeed News granted anonymity to the former Meta workers who spoke for this story.)
Meta laid off more than 11,000 employees, 13% of its workforce, on Wednesday, the first time the company has carried out large-scale layoffs in its 18-year history. Tech companies in the US like Meta rely heavily on work visas to hire thousands of people, mostly from countries like India and China, each year. But US law requires workers with some visas to find new employers or leave the country within 60 days if they lose their jobs.
In an email to employees announcing the layoffs, CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised immigration support to people with visas. “We have dedicated immigration specialists to help guide you based on what you and your family need,” he said. wrote. But the laid off employees said they did not know who these “immigration specialists” were.
“Although they have been publicly claiming that they are providing immigration support, that is completely false,” said one laid-off visa employee. “There is no way we can get a job in 60 days this close to the holiday season.”
Dave Arnold, a spokesperson for Meta, told BuzzFeed News that the company was “working to respond to the inquiries we receive, and we will be reaching out to all affected employees who have contacted the hotline to provide individualized support in the coming days.” . .”
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The affected workers have created a WhatsApp group, which had more than 300 members at the time of publication, to share concerns about the lack of responses from Meta. Most of the people in the group are from India, but there are a handful of people from other countries. Thousands of former employees also congregate in groups on Slack and Discord, where channels dedicated to visa holders are “very active,” one former employee told BuzzFeed News.
“Has anyone gotten a response from immigration or people yet?” an employee wrote in a screenshot of the WhatsApp group seen by BuzzFeed News. (“Peeps” is a reference to the people operations team at Meta, the company’s human resources department.) The message received a negative reaction from another person in the group.
Meanwhile, some former employees appear to have hired, or are struggling to hire, outside immigration attorneys on their own. “If me-immigration doesn’t respond, we can hire an independent immigration lawyer to get quick answers instead of waiting,” an employee wrote in the WhatsApp group.
Some of the hardest-hit workers are those who were out of the country when the layoffs were announced, invalidating their work visas and effectively preventing them from returning to the US. “I have no idea what to do,” he told BuzzFeed. News a US-based Meta employee who was laid off while visiting India for the first time in two years.
Others who are still in the US but had plans to travel abroad are desperately seeking advice.
“Anyone traveling from India in the next few days to the US during this situation, please share your experience,” a former employee wrote on WhatsApp.
“I have sent an email [Meta’s] immigration team for guidance,” wrote another former employee who was scheduled to travel abroad next week. “Waiting for your reply”.
Several people in the group who already had lawyers said they were being advised not to leave the US at this time. “[My lawyer] He told me that if I still want to go, it is my wish,” wrote a former Meta worker. “But it’s risky right now because if someone [at immigration] He asks me if I’m still working on the Meta, [I] I have to tell you the truth.
Another former employee, who has also retained his own immigration lawyer after failing to get a response from Meta, is reconsidering traveling to India for his upcoming wedding. “[My lawyer] He said I must not travel, and if I do, I must not re-enter [the US] unless i get [a new employer],” they wrote.
On Thursday afternoon, the former employee who spoke of Meta’s “radio silence” called the WhatsApp group “crazy active.” But with no communication or immigration guidance from his former employer after nearly 36 hours, the mood, they told BuzzFeed News, was “grim.”
“People are getting angrier and angrier,” they said.
