
H-1B visa fraud: Sunnyvale man indicted for bringing in 600 workers illegally - surfallday
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/11/03/h-1b-visa-fraud-feds-indict-sunnyvale-man-for-bringing-in-600-workers-illegally/
======
rdl
The obvious solution (making h1b non-transferable across employers again,
without even the 30 day window) probably causes more harm than benefit here.

I assume someone could abusively misuse h1b in the traditional Wipro/Infosys
way anyway, by doing staffing companies. His fraud was just more capital
efficient but not that fundamentally different.

It is probably unpopular, but I think h1b should be ended. Genuine short term
needs should be covered through something like L1, and aside from specific
categories of non-immigrant visa like medical or educational, we should just
expand immigrant visas on a Canadian/NZ style merit/points system. This would
be less discriminatory against people from big countries (China and India
specifically), avoid some of the abuse possibilities, and be better for
employees/immigrants and their families. The only losers would be body shops
and large employers who benefit today from a limited form of indenture.

~~~
beerlord
Any replacement visa needs to be like the diversity lottery (or the Olympics)
by rewarding applicants from smaller countries. The migrant intake shouldn't
be dominated completely by India and China - their sheer size gives them an
advantage, as naturalized Indian and Chinese employers will then just go on to
hire their own countrymen. For example, 76% of H1B visas went to Indians.

Having multiple, smaller groups of people inside the USA also assists
integration - instead of being able to fall back on a parallel society,
migrants will be forced to integrate and learn English.

Plus, just like the Olympics, diversity makes things interesting. Having
(qualified) people from Belgium, Poland, Kenya, Thailand, Japan, Colombia,
Mongolia (for example) is more interesting than just India, India, India,
China, China, China.... A broader pool of migrants also helps US businesses
expand worldwide.

Finally, the schemes should also include a minimum 55% quota of women, from
each country. This ensures that any visa scheme does not become completely
dominated by men, and addresses past imbalances.

~~~
amf12
> Any replacement visa needs to be like the diversity lottery (or the
> Olympics) by rewarding applicants from smaller countries

Why? So you are okay with a guy who does not speak English, doesn't have
moderate-high skills, will probably drive Uber or work in some restaurant over
a moderately-skilled Indian/Chinese who understands and speaks relatively
decent English, just because that guys is an Indian or Chinese? This is the
definition of racism.

> Having multiple, smaller groups of people inside the USA also assists
> integration

No. Knowing the local language, understanding the local culture, knowing some
people from a similar culture living in the country (a.k.a having a fallback -
so as to not depend on government aid) helps in integration.

> Plus, just like the Olympics, diversity makes things interesting.

Absolutely. But that should depend on the skills and not on the nationality.
Skilled people from Belgium-Mongolia would still get in regardless of
"diversity lottery visa". What US needs is a point based system which rewards
quality over just diversity.

~~~
UncleEntity
> Why? So you are okay with a guy who does not speak English, doesn't have
> moderate-high skills, will probably drive Uber or work in some restaurant
> over a moderately-skilled Indian/Chinese who understands and speaks
> relatively decent English, just because that guys is an Indian or Chinese?
> This is the definition of racism.

My landlord and the owner of the company I work for both came to the US from
Iran in exactly this way and now they both own successful businesses built up
from busting their asses driving cabs.

That has been The American Dream™ for generations and not the virtual
indentured servitude I always hear about in these discussions.

~~~
amf12
> My landlord and the owner of the company I work for both came to the US from
> Iran

For one example of success there are 100s if not 1000s of examples where they
failed and relied on government handouts.

Also, how did "diversity visa" help in this case? Those guys succeeded because
they were smart and hardworking. Clearly their country of origin did not make
them successful.

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mavelikara
Every time discussion about H-1B comes up here, many people chime in on the
potential abuses from large international outsourcers like Infosys, Wipro,
Cognizant, IBM, Accenture etc. But IME, the most egregious abuses come from
small American staffing companies as those run by the accused here. The
absolute number of H-1B applications they file and get are smaller, but they
occupy the long tail of the distribution. Also, the same fraudulent operators
run multiple such companies. The accused in this case - Kishore Kumar Kavuru -
ran four such companies. In the other case mentioned in the article the
accused - Pradyumna Kumar Samal - two such companies.

I hope these two cases don't go the way of the one against Raju Kosuri.
Kosuri, a naturalized American citizen, plead guilty [1] to serious charges of
immigration fraud. But due to some technicality in the prosecution's case,
Kosuri was handed down a mere 28 months to serve, and is scheduled to be
deported to India [2].

Off-topic question: India does not accept dual citizenship. So when the
Kosuris became naturalized citizens, they must have given up their India
citizenship. Given that, why should India accept them back after they were
deemed criminals in their adopted country? What is the legality around
revoking naturalized US citizenship?

[1]: [https://www.scribd.com/document/322254486/Kosuri-
Plea](https://www.scribd.com/document/322254486/Kosuri-Plea)

[2]: [https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2017/12/24/indian-
nationa...](https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2017/12/24/indian-national-to-
be-deported-after-profiting-20m-by-fraudulently-importing-h-1b-foreign-
workers/)

~~~
beerlord
And in all of the cases, they are Indians committing fraud to assist the
immigration of other Indians.

Perhaps the simplest solution is to disallow Indian nationals from applying
for H1B completely?

I think its generally problematic if one class of visa comes to be dominated
by a single nationality. It does not result in diversity in the host country,
for starters.

I think people would be more welcoming of the H1B visa (and expanding it, or
offering more rights for those on it) if it wasn't completely dominated by
Indian men. Perhaps rules limiting any one country to a maximum of 10% of the
visa quota, and ensuring the intake is at least 60% female would assist public
perceptions?

~~~
jobigoud
How would that be fair to Indian nationals that play by the rules?

There is a similar rule to what you propose in the Olympic Games. Max of 3
athletes from a given country in each track and field event. I always found
that rule stupid and artificial. Potentially several of the top 10 athletes in
the World can't compete just because of their country of origin.

~~~
anticensor
Do you really want a race track full of Africans and Afro-Americans and throw
field full of Scandinavians?

------
BIackSwan
This is good. I have seen a lot of workers/friends who applied legitimately
get fucked because of this kind of abuse of the system.

I still think expansion of the h1b program is necessary since there is a lot
of demand. But curbing the abuse will definitely help the current set of
people opting to use the legal way.

~~~
sneak
Nothing about this is good. The entire system is one of arbitrary
inefficiency. Punishing someone for trying to work around it and labeling it
“fraud” when the only fraud going on is pushing a protectionist agenda as a
free market isn’t a benefit for anyone.

~~~
whoisjuan
You clearly didn't read the article because this guy did absolutely all the
things that constitute a fraud, regardless if it has to do with a visa or not.

Creating fake jobs, falsifying documents, charging money to the people that
were applying for visas, "parking" those visas with no paid wages and using
those unpaid visa beneficiaries to undercut other firms...

I don't think there's a circumstance in any country in which those actions
wouldn't be labeled as "fraud".

~~~
scarejunba
I think he believes the law is unjust.

~~~
lozenge
Even if the law is unjust, breaking it is not necessarily just. It still
depends on the circumstances. In this case he charged fees and almost
certainly lied to the immigrant about their chances of getting a job.

~~~
Nullabillity
So.. the same as the USCIS itself?

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sheeshkebab
H1b needs to end - it’s modern version of serfdom.

If country has shortage of critical skilled workers - bring them in
permanently, based on a system similar to what Canada has.

~~~
wild_preference
My only experience with H1b was when I worked at Amazon.

Lots of pressure to come in on the weekend. I certainly wasn't going to
sacrifice my weekends. I'd just tell them no. I could work somewhere else.

But the H1b guys I worked with from India constantly caved to the guilt. If
they were to lose the job, they'd have to pack up their entire life and go
back to India to try again.

Easy high-skill exploitation.

~~~
pishpash
It affects you too though, as the industry norm is noticeably skewing toward
the expected overtime model even more so than before.

------
jeswin
This man is a symptom of a wider problem.

Once when I visited Hyderabad, I was surprised by the staggering number of IT
institutes in the city (around Ameerpet). There's just no way so many people
can find a job, but somehow they do! Fraudulent claims in resumes and job
applications are very common - and HR folks often advise interviewers to
verify claims in depth. IT jobs fraud is an industry.

Here's a picture from Ameerpet which shows the sheer scale of the IT training
market there: [https://imgur.com/a/AUogLtu](https://imgur.com/a/AUogLtu)

~~~
sizzle
That image your linked is unbelievable, never seen anything like it. Thanks
for sharing.

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projectramo
H1B visas are a hot topic here, and always lead to heated voting.

I will just point out one thing:

1\. How many immigrants come (total number per year)

2\. How they are selected (merit or family)

3\. Where they come from (the wisdom of country caps)

Are three separate issues that need not be conflated. People tend to give a
mixed solution based on their personal experience.

------
itissid
The economic incentives here are a tough nut to crack. Here they are:

1\. Most first time H1B Visas are taken up by an employee that are
paid(typically) less that the college educated US worker. Pay _amortized over
the lifetime_ of this employee is even lower because part of it was in places
like India where the PPP is much higher and labor is cheap.

2\. You can make a lot of money by staying on the edges of the law. For
example body shops/consultants.

3\. Try stopping such body shops and IT CoS will cause jobs to disappear
forever into India. This is the part that most policy makers gloss over. Sure
FAANG could hire US side that but they are minority of H1B applications filed.

Possible Changes:

0\. Separate all categories from the Quota based Green Card residency filing.
This will end the perverse incentive for certain H1B and L1 workers to come to
the US for the sole purpose of citizenship. Especially the under the stupid
EB1 manager cap.

1\. Make it easier for people on H1B categories to study, change jobs and
providing for gaps between employment that are reasonable. This will make
people less beholden and less exploitable by body shops.

2\. Introduce a points based system for Permanent Residence that will award
citizenship fairly to everyone based on real effort put in by people to get
here. Things like education, language, diversity, age all should count. This
will chip away at incentives attached to certain visa types.

3\. Completely separate the H1B Visa processing for US college educated from
the other pool of H1B workers. Make more granular categories for work visa.

------
IdontRememberIt
It should be made more complicated for companies to easily "import" skills
that are not so hard to learn. Companies should train their employees for the
coming new skills required. This is what Swiss companies were doing when it
was impossible to immigrate in Switzerland. And the employee-employer
relationship was a lot healthier than today.

~~~
s3nnyy
Can you elaborate on "Swiss companies were training their employees when it
was impossible to immigrate in Switzerland"?

~~~
IdontRememberIt
Before entering Schengen, Switzerland was a very closed country for the job
market. It was very difficult to get a permit. Switzerland had (has) a major
issue: salaries were high compared internationally and there could not import
skilled employees. So all the companies/factories had trainings to keep their
employees and "transition" them when the technology or business was changing
and making their CV obsolete. The companies with the best training/programs
were attracting talents. So all companies had to do it. Otherwise they would
not attract talents. It already starts with apprenticeship. Did you know that
you could start a top career in a top Swiss bank with an apprenticeship at 16
yo? Some companies are still like this. But most of campanies prefer now to
simply fire and hire an already baked employee; but they keep training
programms made by HR more for marketing/communication purposes than a real
culture.

~~~
s3nnyy
Schengen is solely about movement of tourists; it has nothing to do with work
authorization.

Germany, Switzerland and other places share the development that 40yrs ago a
top career in a top company with was possible with an apprenticeship and
without a uni degree.

------
Kephael
H-1B visas aren't even given out to people with specialized knowledge, new
grads are able to get them.

~~~
gnulinux
New grads can use F1 visas with OPT.

------
readhn
isnt this simply a problem with the application process? Simple verification
that the job/employer exist would close this “loop hole”, no?

------
lifesucks1
Just one there are hundreds across the country. They all play the same game
identify hot techs and hire people and bring them here and then bench them
till work shows up. Trump has accomplished nothing so far.

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jopsen
For a "human trafficking" operation 600 people over a decade seems like a
fairly small scale operation..

In terms of harm, these workers are clearly in demand, so apart from being
unfair to other staffing agencies and H1B applicants, this really doesn't do
much harm..

H1B is a pretty broken concept to begin with.. I was H1B for 4 years before I
decided Trump-land wasn't a good place to set roots.

If you have demand for tech workers and tech workers willing to move. I think
most countries and cities would move heaven and Earth to make things work out.
Everybody wants to be silicon valley :)

(I don't see why SV has to have the problems it has, they seem fixable)

~~~
GordonS
> In terms of harm, these workers are clearly in demand

Yes, foreign workers who are willing to work for less than local market rates
are in big demand.

Foreign workers are also very likely to move a big chunk of their wages back
to their families every month.

So in terms of harm, there are these at least:

    
    
      - artificially pushing down local market rates
      - money paid doesn't stay in the local economy

~~~
jopsen
> money paid doesn't stay in the local economy

If the money was all invested in the local real estate marked you'd also
complain :)

> artificially pushing down local market rates

In a market where the median salary is 130k, maybe it's good for the economy
-- more than it hurts people.

~~~
GordonS
My comment wasn't with reference to the Bay area.

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zaru27
This program needs to end. H1B a bandaid over our complete failure to provide
a modern education and bring young people into STEM, while dually deflating
middle class wages for the tech oligarchs across the industry for several
decades. And, ironically, the Democrats, who should supposedly be protecting
the middle class, have a blood pact with the SV elite.

~~~
readhn
Somehow I question that you are 100% Native American (the only people who are
really allowed to complain about this whole immigration “issue”).

From the historic perspective- With very high probability you are just another
immigrant who came here a bit earlier than the guy unboarding jfk flight this
second.

Study history. USA was/is built by immigrants. Good immigration policies
attract talent that moves the planet forward. Where would USA be today if it
wasn’t for many talented people who came to this country to pursue their
dreams?

Don’t blame issues caused by corruption and private interests in the upper
echelons of power on others.

~~~
jhowell
I don't think your account of the country goes back far enough. My
recollection was that the USA was built by slaves. The irony of this
conversation is the assumption our country, represented by Government feels
any differently now about the exploitation of labor today.

~~~
patrickg_zill
This is a common misconception that cannot be backed up by the simplest
mathematics.

At no time was the total number of blacks both free and slave, in the US over
25%, yet without any social welfare programs everyone was working.

Further it was precisely the areas which were built up by slavery that were
destroyed during the Civil War. Thus negating any advantage gained from
slavery.

So no, the country was not built by slavery.

~~~
jhowell
"This is a common misconception that cannot be backed up by the simplest
mathematics."

Then you say...

"Further it was precisely the areas which were built up by slavery that were
destroyed during the Civil War. Thus negating any advantage gained from
slavery."

Sounds like you have a problem with the truth of any advantage provided to
whites by the federal government. Typically folks like you say, "get over it
next," but never is job interviews, just on message boards.

Probably fake news to you, but how were the advantages of free labor destroyed
by the Civil War. Perhaps you take "built this country" literally and are a
recent immigrant.

[https://www.history.com/news/slavery-profitable-southern-
eco...](https://www.history.com/news/slavery-profitable-southern-economy)

Crap, just clicked on your previsions submissions and comments... Dude, I
think you're a racist.

~~~
patrickg_zill
If there were buildings, roads, etc that were built, many of them were
destroyed.

~~~
jhowell
I hope you share your opinion in person, loudly and unapologetic with all who
will listen. Do not keep your beliefs and perspectives a secret. You deserve
to be heard.

In fact, I would love to learn more about history from your perspective.
Perhaps you can elaborate or share some literature that I can read at my
leisure. Also, I'm curious to hear any opinions you may have on #metoo, or
women in technology should you be willing to indulge me.

For your convenience, I quote you below:

"Further it was precisely the areas which were built up by slavery that were
destroyed during the Civil War. Thus negating any advantage gained from
slavery."

------
osrec
Before I clicked on the link, I suspected it would be an Indian. I've dealt
with a few such "recruiters" in London as well. Slimy individuals preying on
those trying to secure a better future.

~~~
choot
So you assume all such frauds are committed by Indians.

Do you also assume all bank and atm robberies are done by Romanians?

And all credit card skeaming by Russians.

All money laundering by Brits and all brothels by Dutch.

I don't see any point of making such broad generalisation about a particular
ethinicity.

~~~
osrec
It's not that I assume, it's just that it's becoming a common, observable
pattern across a variety of industries, from IT staff, to general helpers
round the house.

I'm Indian too, by the way, so it pains me to say it, but the stereotype of an
Indian committing immigration fraud overseas is establishing itself rather
well.

~~~
cbg0
Well there's more than a billion indians, so the bad apples do tend to stand
out more, even though statistically there might be just as many slimy <insert
other nationality here>.

~~~
osrec
I think you're missing the point. The sheer volume of people, our cutthroat,
materialistic culture, poverty and intrinsic desire of hopefuls to "escape" to
a rosier place makes the Indian population perfect for this kind of fraud. And
of course, there are plenty of well-off NRI Indians willing to sell them the
dream of moving to the west.

Even our pop stars were at it:
[https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-
as...](https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-
india-43428622)

------
vijaybritto
Even before clicking the link I thought it would be an Indian guy. Cause the
headline sounded odd! I don't know why only Indians are doing this shit
predominantly. This will lead to other Indians getting abused given how
negative and fake news spreads today!

~~~
nonamechicken
>I don't know why only Indians are doing this shit predominantly.

Because of a huge number of Indian students, especially from one particular
state. US is marketed as an utopia to them, so they all line up to study in US
thinking they will get a job as soon as they complete their studies. Reality
is surviving on h1b in US is hard. The students have less than 18 months to
get an h1b or packup and leave. The Indians who do these scams know how
desperate the students are. This is the only chance they have to recoup their
educational expenses and show that US experience in their resume and work in
US for couple of years at least. The scammers exploit this situation of
students.

I think it will soon come to an end with the current administration finally
taking action to end this practice. That means students will have less visas
and the number of students will come down.

------
boomboomsubban
I don't see why this is particularly newsworthy. "Man accused of small amount
of fraud" is barely a headline in other areas, why is this instance such a
major deal?

~~~
saagarjha
Is fraudulently allowing 600 people to enter the United States a “small amount
of fraud”?

~~~
nonamechicken
I didn't see it mentioned anywhere that he brought people from India. Usually,
these kind of scams involve students who came to US to study. So they were
already in the country. They will be forced to leave in 18 months unless they
get an h1b, so they have to resort to such practices.

------
em3rgent0rdr
The laws criminalizing immigration need to repealed. Then there wouldn't be
such a market incentivizing people to engage in fraud simply to bring people
together.

~~~
speedplane
This is a ridiculous argument. Every law prohibiting or encouraging a behavior
has the potential to create an illicit market. the fact that such a black
market could exist is a pretty poor excuse to disregard it.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
* "simply to bring people together"

~~~
speedplane
What are you trying to say exactly?

