Desi consultancy has not paid salary

[shah1979]

Posting for a friend.

He had been working for an Indian IT consultancy. While on a project he had gone outside US(to Canada) for his H1B stamping (he had taken 3 weeks off)..Unfortunately his visa wasn't issued and his case was on administrative processing/RFE. He was stuck outside USA for over 4 months. During this time he had been working remotely as his client was fine with him working remotely and were very supportive. The consultancy firm (based in Michigan) in the meantime had stopped paying him his salary(also no paystubs were generated for 4 months--total around 25,000 salary not paid) saying that the middle vendor had not being paying them. My friend did not make any noise since he was more keen on getting his visa processed while he was stuck outside US. Once he was back in the US the salary started getting credited (middle vendor was removed from contract) .My friend was helpless as he was more concerned about his h1b visa and also green card which was being processed .Within 3 years of the incident he got his green card through the same desi consultancy. During those days (2014 year) when he was'nt getting paid he was told that there was a legal case against the middle vendor (case documents were shared with my friend initially) and it could take years to resolve the issue since the middle vendor had requested that they give him time to make payments. After couple of years my friend was told that the middle vendor had declared bankruptcy and he should forget about the payments.The consultantcy firm also assured that they would try to work things out by writing off his green card fees .etc...However they did not fulfill their promises ...Do you think my friend still stands a chance to recover his money back from this consultancy after almost 6 years?? ....Apparently it seems if you do not report within a certain timeline to the labour department it becomes hard to recover the wages.A lot of small Indian consultancy companies take advantage of this loophole....Also since he was stuck in Canada it looks like the consultancy showed that he was on leave on their payroll records.. Please note that my friend was more concerned with his h1b /green card processing and did not want to report the matter at that time.What legal route can he take now? Does it make sense to take the legal route with the legal fees ,etc..?Even if he takes any action would it go against him? Would there be any repercussions?