A former vice president of product management at JP Morgan Chase & Co. in Texas says the financial firm unlawfully retaliated against him after he complained about race and national origin discrimination, according to a federal lawsuit filed this month.
Prafull Khare, an Indian citizen, was employed at one of the company’s administrative offices in Plano through an H-1B visa sponsorship. He was working on cloud networking and security products beginning in January 2023, according to the lawsuit.
The specialty occupation visa program allows foreign workers like Khare with at least a bachelor’s degree to work in the U.S. for a few years, with the option to extend their visa as they progress through the employed-sponsored green card application process.
There were more than 470,000 eligible registrations for H-1B visas for fiscal year 2025. There’s an annual cap for the in-demand specialty work visa and it operates in a lottery system. Of the eligible registrations, 120,000 were selected, according to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Once a sponsored employee is fired or laid off, a 60-day grace period begins when workers either need to find a new job that will sponsor them, arrange for another immigration status that allows them to stay in the U.S., or make plans to leave the country.
Rod Tanner, an attorney representing Khare, said his client is aggressively pursuing other employment opportunities, and he and his wife are hopeful to remain in the U.S.
“Their future hinges on this,” Tanner said. “Khare enjoys working and living in the U.S. and hopes to continue to do so.”
A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson declined to comment on the case, which is generally the bank’s practice on pending litigation, they said.
“There is no place for bias, prejudice or discrimination in our company, ever,” a bank spokesperson stated. “It is unacceptable and does not reflect our standards for how we treat our employees or serve our clients and communities.”
Khare alleged that the work assignments executives at the bank gave him didn’t line up with the duties outlined in his visa application, assigned him tasks with unrealistic completion dates and misrepresented the work he had completed.
Because the work assignments were outside the scope of his position on his immigration application, Khare expressed concern that this conflict would jeopardize his ability to work and remain in the U.S., according to the lawsuit.
One of his supervisors allegedly assigned Khare to work on data product management and business intelligence activities, which the U.S. Department of Labor requires prior approval for foreign workers.
In a meeting with his supervisors, Khare told the executives that they “put him under a microscope, were constantly searching for flaws, and had misrepresented Khare’s work performance,” according to legal filings. Khare stated that the supervisors disliked him because he was an Indian immigrant and they were trying to set him up for failure.
The executives denied that they were conspiring against Khare, saying that the problems were a result of communication failures, according to the lawsuit.
After Khare complained about what he viewed as discrimination, the lawsuit alleges that JPMorgan retaliated by firing him in April, during the final days of his probationary period.
Khare was earning a base annual salary of $180,000 and a $40,000 annual bonus. He’s in part looking for back pay and damages, according to the legal complaint.
