H-1B Employees Sue Meta, Cite Deportation Risk After AI-Driven Layoffs

A group of Meta employees has taken the company to court, accusing it of using artificial intelligence to decide who should lose their jobs, including people who were on maternity leave, medical leave or disability accommodations at the time.

Four of the plaintiffs hold jobs in the US through visas sponsored by Meta, and they told the court that being laid off could leave them without legal status if they cannot find a new sponsoring employer quickly enough.

US District Judge William Orrick largely sided with Meta on July 17, refusing to pause the company's layoffs through a restraining order for the group as a whole. But he treated the four visa holders differently, carving out an exception for them. Court documents refer to these employees as Does 4, 9, 15 and 26, as per media reports.

According to Orrick, these workers face a real risk, not just a hypothetical one, since their grace period to land a new visa sponsor after losing their job could run as short as 60 days. He has now asked Meta to justify, by July 23, exactly why each of these four visa holders was picked for termination.

The judge distinguished this situation from other layoff-related losses. Pay, stock and insurance, he noted, can be sorted out later through arbitration if the workers win their case. Losing legal immigration status cannot be undone the same way.

AI's Role In A Larger Layoff Dispute

This case sits within a bigger lawsuit filed by 26 current and former Meta employees in the Northern District of California. As per the Guardian, the dispute stems from a round of layoffs earlier this year that hit close to 8,000 Meta employees.

The employees claim Meta's internal systems folded together AI-generated scores and various workplace signals, such as how active or productive someone appeared to be, when deciding who would be cut. Because employees on approved leave are naturally less active at work, the plaintiffs argue the process penalised them unfairly for taking leave they were legally entitled to.

Among the individual accounts described in the suit, one woman said she found out she was being laid off just two days before she gave birth, while on approved pregnancy leave. An engineer said his ratings fell after he took leave to recover from an injury. A manager said his layoff came barely two weeks into a medical leave.

The plaintiffs argue Meta leaned on automated scoring and ranking rather than allowing managers who actually knew their work to make the final call.

The workers are asking the court to reinstate them, pay them back wages, restore lost equity and benefits, and order an independent audit of how Meta's AI systems are used in layoff decisions.

Meta has pushed back against the allegations. A company spokesperson told the Guardian the claims "lack merit and are not based on facts," maintaining that workforce and organisational decisions "were and are made by people, not AI."