Opinion on immigration fraud

As an Indian, I think there is way too much fraud in Indian L1 and H1B applications. Heck, even B1/B2. I know people in India who work for Indian IT companies who were hired because they already had US B1/B2 visas and were sent to the US immediately for six months to work at the client site. There's a rotating team of bodies at the client site on such B1/B2 visas. This is clearly not what business visa is intended for. I also know people who've gotten fradulent H1B visas through desi consulting companies. And it pains me that people do this.

For every fradulent/consultant/bodyshop H1B/GC application that gets thrown out, that's one less person ahead of me in the queue. So I am actually for tighter enforcement of the laws. Similarly, I support the $2k increase on H1B filing fees for all companies with > 50% foreign employees. First of all, this should not affect most legitimate companies bringing people in (maybe carve out an exception for startups if required). Secondly, if this makes a H1B worker 'uneconomical', then the petitioner had no business bringing the person in in the first place. What is $2k amortized over a 3 yr visa? If that's the margin of some of these bodyshoppers, no wonder they were up in arms.

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Originally Posted by abcx13

As an Indian, I think there is way too much fraud in Indian L1 and H1B applications. Heck, even B1/B2. I know people in India who work for Indian IT companies who were hired because they already had US B1/B2 visas and were sent to the US immediately for six months to work at the client site.

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I won't mention any names but... In my company we are getting people from Brazil and Italy on L1 and B1 visas simply because 'our branch office' in those countries has run out of work, not because they have some expertise that is not available in USA. We have not even tried looking for American talent. So it is not just Indian companies... everybody is exploiting the situation.

Having said all the above: There is no doubt that there is a genuine shortage of right kind of skills (IT, high-tech, physicians) that are being brought from other countries. I guess what I am saying that in the end, it ends up being fair to everyone. I mean the law's intended purpose is met one way or another.

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Originally Posted by mniwas

I won't mention any names but... In my company we are getting people from Brazil and Italy on L1 and B1 visas simply because 'our branch office' in those countries has run out of work, not because they have some expertise that is not available in USA. We have not even tried looking for American talent. So it is not just Indian companies... everybody is exploiting the situation.

Having said all the above: There is no doubt that there is a genuine shortage of right kind of skills (IT, high-tech, physicians) that are being brought from other countries. I guess what I am saying that in the end, it ends up being fair to everyone. I mean the law's intended purpose is met one way or another.

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I'm sure everyone is doing it but as with other things like corruption, Indians just seem to have a much higher incidence rate of fraud/misuse.

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Originally Posted by abcx13

As an Indian, I think there is way too much fraud in Indian L1 and H1B applications. Heck, even B1/B2. I know people in India who work for Indian IT companies who were hired because they already had US B1/B2 visas and were sent to the US immediately for six months to work at the client site. There's a rotating team of bodies at the client site on such B1/B2 visas. This is clearly not what business visa is intended for. I also know people who've gotten fradulent H1B visas through desi consulting companies. And it pains me that people do this.

For every fradulent/consultant/bodyshop H1B/GC application that gets thrown out, that's one less person ahead of me in the queue. So I am actually for tighter enforcement of the laws. Similarly, I support the $2k increase on H1B filing fees for all companies with > 50% foreign employees. First of all, this should not affect most legitimate companies bringing people in (maybe carve out an exception for startups if required). Secondly, if this makes a H1B worker 'uneconomical', then the petitioner had no business bringing the person in in the first place. What is $2k amortized over a 3 yr visa? If that's the margin of some of these bodyshoppers, no wonder they were up in arms.

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Classifying everybody that does not belong to your category as fraud is selfishness or self-centerdness.

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Originally Posted by gcq

Classifying everybody that does not belong to your category as fraud is selfishness or self-centerdness.

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Uh really? I was talking about fraud and abuse in the system - whether it be in EB2, EB3 or EB1C. I don't think that's being selfish. It's called being "a good citizen" and ultimately that benefits everyone - except the people gaming the system.

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Originally Posted by abcx13

Uh really? I was talking about fraud and abuse in the system - whether it be in EB2, EB3 or EB1C. I don't think that's being selfish. It's called being "a good citizen" and ultimately that benefits everyone - except the people gaming the system.

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This is what you wrote "fradulent/consultant/bodyshop H1B/GC application " . If you are referring to fraudulent applications in all categories, please make it clear. From your wordings that is not what I read.

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Originally Posted by abcx13

Uh really? I was talking about fraud and abuse in the system - whether it be in EB2, EB3 or EB1C. I don't think that's being selfish. It's called being "a good citizen" and ultimately that benefits everyone - except the people gaming the system.

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Hi, I have heard from friends working in big desi companies that they transfer so-called Senior Managers from their Indian operation to US offices to work at client sites as software testers. Such Senior Managers who are not even graduates get green cards in six months to 1 year in EB1C category as they don't need to go through PERM process and EB1C is current. EB1A and EB1B is for PhDs and nobel prize winners while these junior testers are placed at the same level as the researchers.

I doubt this claim. I don't think Indian software companies hire people without Graduation.
Also it would be prudent of USCIS to look for such red flags too.

Yes in this world people bend rules to circumvent their own problem. It's in all walks of life of everyone. I would say USCIS should spend some time for these special visas/categories than regular ones. And such exploiters do cause frustration to the people who are waiting in queue for long time. I too don't understand this concept of international managers and their value add to growth of this country.

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Originally Posted by vgraj1

Hi, I have heard from friends working in big desi companies that they transfer so-called Senior Managers from their Indian operation to US offices to work at client sites as software testers. Such Senior Managers who are not even graduates get green cards in six months to 1 year in EB1C category as they don't need to go through PERM process and EB1C is current. EB1A and EB1B is for PhDs and nobel prize winners while these junior testers are placed at the same level as the researchers.

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Originally Posted by vgraj1

Hi, I have heard from friends working in big desi companies that they transfer so-called Senior Managers from their Indian operation to US offices to work at client sites as software testers. Such Senior Managers who are not even graduates get green cards in six months to 1 year in EB1C category as they don't need to go through PERM process and EB1C is current. EB1A and EB1B is for PhDs and nobel prize winners while these junior testers are placed at the same level as the researchers.

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Yes this information is right .There were multiple posts about six months ago in the Predictions threads where many users had shared the abuse problem with EB1C being committed even by companies like Intel and Qualcomm bringing in people on EB1C from India.They need to attract people from India and if somebody is drawing a good salary back there it is hard to get them over here...so the carrot being dangled is the promise of an quick gc through EB1C.

Anwyaz the gaming is too hard to stop and has been going on since quite some time.As the H1 regulations get tightened some of the companies have started doing this .

Just search in the predictions thread and you will get those posts.

I will just put my 2 cents on this topic. Counting my previous posts on this topics - its more like 10 cents now though :) So forgive me for repitition.

Generally speaking I think we should not badmouth other folks who are waiting on their GCs. Whether ROW China EB1 EB5 EB3 ....... whoever. Life is not all fair nor everything is deterministic. Sometimes one gets lucky and we all get our turn at luck and randomness. So it's not a good idea to crib about others' positive "luck".

Having said that I perfectly understand the frustration of having to wait in GC line for 10 years after going to better schools in India and then here and then being superceded by some project manager guy with no real management experience. However, I still would tip my hat to him and let him go ahead since as I said - it doesn't help me to criticize his/her luck. Just makes me angry and I lose. So purely in self interest I would suggest one should do the same !!

p.s. Lest somebody will accuse me of having the luxury to say so AFTER having received my own GC; I would humbly point out that this has been my position much before I received my GC.

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Originally Posted by qesehmk

I will just put my 2 cents on this topic. Counting my previous posts on this topics - its more like 10 cents now though :) So forgive me for repitition.

Generally speaking I think we should not badmouth other folks who are waiting on their GCs. Whether ROW China EB1 EB5 EB3 ....... whoever. Life is not all fair nor everything is deterministic. Sometimes one gets lucky and we all get our turn at luck and randomness. So it's not a good idea to crib about others' positive "luck".

Having said that I perfectly understand the frustration of having to wait in GC line for 10 years after going to better schools in India and then here and then being superceded by some project manager guy with no real management experience. However, I still would tip my hat to him and let him go ahead since as I said - it doesn't help me to criticize his/her luck. Just makes me angry and I lose. So purely in self interest I would suggest one should do the same !!

p.s. Lest somebody will accuse me of having the luxury to say so AFTER having received my own GC; I would humbly point out that this has been my position much before I received my GC.

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Hi, I agree what you say is a balanced approach. Like EB1C, we all know about abuse of H1B visa by desi consultancies. Ironically, this 'abuse' has been helping US companies to hire contractors for projects of short duration. In the IT space that I work, I get lots of emails for contract jobs, say to start with $90/hour, then in two weeks the same job rate goes upto $100/month and in another two weeks the same job rate goes upto $125/hour. I have even spoken to a few of my friends in recruitment/consultancy companies and they say they can't find such skillset even at higher rates. So, the tightening up of H1B visa has driven the rates up in some areas and made some specialty skilled people shy away, and it is also encouraging offshoring while President Obama wants to curb it. One can call it market aberration, but it is a messy situation. To add to it, the long wait times for GC is also encouraging people to return home - I have a few friends who got fed up with this long wait and returned to India, but good for them the US companies continue to hire them to work from India paying them US salaries; this is also encouraging offshoring which President Obama wants to curb but these policies are achieving exactly opposite of that.