Indian Hustle: How Fraudsters Prey On Would-be US Tech Workers 124
New submitter angel115 points out this article on the widespread fraud committed in India against many thousands of those seeking visas to work in the U.S. Many Indian techies rely on the services of visa brokers (or people who claim to be), and end up burned by the transaction. From the article: "Some are lucky enough to get a visa — only to find that the promised job in the US doesn’t materialize. Then the visa holders are forced to return to India after spending thousands of dollars just surviving. ... No official figures are available for the number of frauds in India, but an unclassified document released by Wikileaks showed that in 2009, US consular officials cited H-1B scams as one of the two most common fraud categories in India." Another interesting detail: As part of a U.S. government investigation, "Officers investigated 150 companies in the city and discovered that 77 percent 'turned out to be fraudulent or highly suspect.' ... Officials uncovered a scheme where Hyderabadis were claiming to work for made-up companies in Pune so the Mumbai consulate would be less suspicious about their applications. 'The Hyderabadis claimed that they had opened shell companies in Bangalore because "everyone knows Hyderabad has fraud and Bangalore is reputable,” according to the internal communiqué [later published by Wikileaks]."
Green card indentured servitude (Score:2, Interesting)
The misery doesn't end if they actually get into the US with a job. Once they apply for a green card US law requires they work for the same company for 7 years. The contracting companies use this to their advantage. I've seen friends being delayed given documents needed to prove how long they worked. I don't know all the details of what they go through, but I've heard enough to not want to hire from certain companies again.
worth the risk? (Score:2, Interesting)
Boo Fu*king Hoo (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, am sounding insensitive to folks in India. However, am sitting on the other side, where my company has moved all Sys Admin and Database Admin overseas. Posting Anon to keep my resume hopes up. When the f*ck are we going to wake up and take care of our country? Folks collectively spend billions getting the degrees and experience, only to get jobs at Walmart; where they can't even pay their student loans. To top it, we continue to support FB, Google, M$ and others who continue to push for underpaid H1V1 visas...
Re:Why the exodus ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't They just live and work in India?
Why in the world would they want to do that if given a choice? Sure they have a growing middle class and an Indian software developer lives pretty well considering he is living in India. He/she can afford to live in a reasonably furnished apartment without rats or vermin, afford to feed their family and eat well, and even achieve the pinnacle of middle class success in India, possession of your very own A/C unit to keep you cool in the sweltering summers (as long as the power actually works).
The one thing they will always live with however is the gross overpopulation, the crumbling infrastructure and the graft fraud and bribery that becomes a part of just daily living. A friend of mine from India told me to imagine your day, you get stopped by a cop for a minor infraction, pay a bribe or go to jail. You wait 8 hours in line to get your drivers license renewed unless you bribe the guy at the door to be queued ahead. Somebody can break into your home and steal what little you have and the cops just don't care.
He told me Americans are spoiled not because we are wealthy, but because we don't see Justice as the luxury it really is. Until you live in an overcrowded country that has 400 million starving people in the streets and has rampant corruption and a generally low value on human life, then you will never truly understand how valuable Justice in a society really is. He is slightly amused watching our countries political battles and scandals.
I appreciated his perspective and where he came from in life, and I wouldn't begrudge anybody who would want to come live here if they didn't care for that life anymore.
Re:Why the exodus ? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are still great reasons to immigrate to USA from India. Less corruption, great clean water and air, reliable power supply etc. But for a young man from a top school contemplating US grad schools/jobs, the biggest stumbling block is the lack of domestic help. Indian girls refuse to marry and move to America because they have to do all the house work. They might be willing to cook and may be load the dishwasher. But cleaning toilets is considered the beneath their dignity. It is nearly impossible now a days to persuade Indian women without IT career prospects to immigrate to USA. Indian women with career in IT get to marry the top honchos in India and get to live a life of luxury.
I thank my lucky stars for immigrating in the early 1990s for my wonderful wife.
I do (Score:3, Interesting)
Who is it that supports immigration controls, exactly?
If you have no immigration controls then you will essentially have a situation where people will move to other countries speculatively. This will put a vast strain on resources like education, and so on. You also need to decide how you are going to handle out-of-work benefits, and historically courts have often differed in decisions on entitlement from what the government intended (how do you deal with a family with one foreign born parent - and are courts going to decide that the same must apply to an extended family with one Western born child?). Even if you make a draconian decision that no benefits can go to any family with a foreign-born member then if you have no restrictions you could end up with shanty-towns on the edge of every major city, increased crime rates (most people will do something rather than starve if the minimum wage job that would be a fortune at home doesn't come arround.
Then there are terrorists. Granted three are many peaceful people in India; Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Christians, and Agnostics, but they also have a large number of Muslim terrorists. You can be sure they'd see an open door policy as an invitation to attack the west.
Fraudsters are being defrauded, so what? (Score:2, Interesting)
Correct me if I misunderstood something here but these people are trying to commit visa fraud themselves. They are paying a company for the purpose of getting a visa just so they can get into the country to look for a job with other companies in the US and transfer their visa. They know that these are shell companies that will not actually employ them.