You should take that number with a large grain of salt. Twenty years is more than likely the sum of the maximum sentences for each of the six charges.

Popehat has touched on this subject (how the media doesn't understand federal sentencing) from time to time.

https://popehat.com/2015/10/08/bad-reporting-on-matthew-keys...

https://popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-el...

https://popehat.com/2013/03/26/cloudy-with-a-chance-of-shitt...

https://popehat.com/2013/08/13/the-eric-holder-memorandum-on...

One would argue that they understand it well, and default to calculating the consecutive maximum penalty or concurrent minimum allowable by law to suit the sensationalism they constantly add to every headline and article to sell because when the news is run like a business, you will get the news that sells the most, and never hear about the important things that don't attract consumers' attention. Unless it suits the need of the propaganda machine, but that's another discussion altogether.

Not every killer should go to jail for life, but (let's say) some do; thus, the maximum is life. Maybe these brothers deserve 20 years, maybe they don't, but bringing people into a new country, where they will be dependent on you, in order to take advantage of them, is a serious offense. 20 years seems reasonable to me.

(Edit: changed "charge" to "offense" since that is a pattern of behavior rather than a crime.)

>Not every killer should go to jail for life, but (let's say) some do; thus, the maximum is life.

Many countries don't have life sentences.

I'm not convinced of the value of life imprisonment (or of imprisonment). I only meant to state that the maximum sentence is not related to these perpetrators, but the worst possible perpetrator of a given crime.

(Edit: forgot the "not" in "not convinced".)

It's better to read the numbers as "no more than" instead of "up to". "They face no more than 20 years in prison."

I think we seriously undersentence criminals who cynically and cruelly hurt people for money, but don't happen to use physical violence to do so.

(Often "undersentence" means "completely ignore." Unjustly evicting a family from their home is no less destructive than burning it down while they're out, but the former doesn't even seem to be treated as a crime.)

I personally could care less how we sentence these criminals, because I thinking changes in sentencing tend to have little effect anyway.

We should be more concerned about fixing the immigration system so our regulations don't give employers like this the leverage to exploit their employees.

Calling it fraud suggests that; 20 years in prison is an excessive punishment just for stealing money. But H1B is actually a large fraction of the way to slavery, and slavery is a worse crime than murder. So in this case I'd be fine with them getting the full 20 years.

You are comparing independent consultants/contractors to slaves, seriously?

Last I checked the terms of H1B, workers under it were not independent by a very long shot. Not outright slaves, granted, but the term 'indentured servitude' could reasonably be used.

Mislabeling the current situation as "slavery" or "indentured servitude" won't help your cause. You can say these regulations create the incentives and opportunity to exploit immigrants by effectively making it difficult for them to shop for a better paying job.

I see it as voluntary servitude in the hopes of making a lot of money. AFAIK nothing stops the employee from simply walking away (i.e. going back to his home-country).

Unless you live in North Korea, nearly any unjust law can in principle be avoided by 'simply' leaving the country. In practice, this is a sufficiently costly step that we still correctly say that unjust laws infringe on people's freedom.