'As an Indian-American....': US diplomat who was posted in Chennai calls H-1B industrialized fraud

US diplomat Mahvash Siddiqui, an Indian-origin US Foreign Service Officer, called out the industrialized fraud in the H-1B visa program as she recounted her experience at the Chennai consulate in India 20 years ago. Siddiqui appeared on a podcast and spoke on her personal capacity and not as a diplomat as she busted the myth that America has a shortage of STEM talents that have to be filled from India. The diplomat revealed a shocking figure and claimed that 80-90% of the H-1B visas from India are fake -- either they have fake degrees or some other forged documents or they are not highly skilled as to be deserving an H-1B visa.

The H-1B visa program allows US companies to hire skilled workers from foreign countries. The Donald Trump administration has come under heat over its vacillating stand on the issue as H-1B now has a fee of $100,000 so that only candidates who are absolutely necessary and are highly skilled can be hired, but the administration does not want to take a strong stand against the visa program. In a recent interview, President Trump has made it clear that America needs H-1B as there are certain talents that the US needs to hire from other countries.

'We were called a rogue operation'

Siddiqui said she was posted to the Chennai consulate from 2005 to 2007 when she adjudicated at least 51,000 H-1B visas. The Chennai consulate processed applications from four regions: Hyderabad, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, she said, adding that Hyderabad was the most concerning as Hyderabad's Ameerpet had shops not only consulting candidates on visa but providing them with forged documents -- be it an educational certificate or a marriage certificate. Siddiqui said she and the team she was working with quickly learned the fraud pattern and flagged it to the administration but there was a lot of political pressure. And their anti-fraud drive was called a 'rogue operation'. Siddiqui claimed many politicians were involved in running the operation and there was pressure on them to not pursue their investigation.




"As an Indian-American, I hate to say this but fraud and bribery are normalized in India," Siddiqui said, adding that she doesn't want to generalize but there were cases where the candidates did not even appear for their job interview themselves if the interviewer was an American. Proxy candidates giving interview, Indian manager giving jobs to Indians in exchange of a monthly cut from the salaries are some of the cases she said were rampant in H-1B as she noticed when she was posted in India.