Given the poor employment situation for PhDs in any science field these days, I guess my question would be, "why do they feel they need to sponsor an H1b for this position"? There are thousands upon thousands of citizens looking for even a postdoc, who are completely qualified. That's not an exaggeration, there are at least tens of thousands of scientists, possibly hundreds of thousands, who have been laid off from industry and government scientific jobs. See, for example, Doug Prasher of GFP fame. If a PI still insists that he requires someone from overseas in that situation, well, I've seen the bait-and-switch get a lot worse than merely not doing science; typically, scientists sponsored on H1b are getting paid significantly less (like, half) of what a citizen would be paid, and treated worse than citizens, specifically because they can't leave easily for another job. Mostly I've seen H1b positions filled because the boss is worse than merely "not nice," he's so awful he can't keep anyone in the job if they have any other options whatsoever.

It's a bit like advertising, "Botanist wanted: field work necessary, housing, transportation and food allowance included in salary, previous experience in Gossypium spp. required, H1b visas accepted" and it turns out the job is picking cotton on a slave plantation. There may indeed be personal reasons you would take the job anyway (many indentured servants sold and re-sold their contract labor regardless of working conditions), but don't expect much.

Sometimes bosses are jerks. Sometimes the needs of the company change and therefore the job changes.

If it's truly a situation where they purposely lied to you to get you in the door, I'm not sure what you can really do. If the person is dishonest to begin with, you can't really trust them to change when it's pointed out.

I suppose you could sue them over the false information, but it's doubtful that would be worth your time.

Sometimes people are just not nice.

okay, So I will ask you (and I am being sincere) what do you do about bait and switch jobs?

I'm not exaggerating here.

This isn't an issue of "they had a bad feeling" or "they didn't ask enough questions" but "they were hired to do research but are stuck doing the exact opposite". And no, it's not a misunderstanding when the owner yells at someone for complaining, and the owner himself is the hiring manager.

Look, it's great that you have all these strateges to try and prevent bad things from happening. Those work really well when the manager/owner is making a good faith effort in hiring. But when you travel across the world on an H1-B visa being told one thing and you find yourself in another "asking a few more questions" or "talking to the hiring manager" isn't going to cut it.

Here like like to tell scientists they'll be doing research in their area of choice, and them have them anything but.

Be cool.