Whistleblower In Limbo After Reporting H-1B Visa Fraud At Infosys 276
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Soulskill
from the par-for-the-course dept.
from the par-for-the-course dept.
McGruber writes "The New York Times has the sad story of Jack B. Palmer, an employee of Infosys, the giant Indian outsourcing firm. 17 months ago, Mr. Palmer made a quiet internal complaint that Infosys was committing visa fraud by bringing 'in Indian workers on short-term visitor visas, known as B-1, instead of longer-term temporary visas, known as H-1B, which are more costly and time-consuming to obtain.' Since making his complaint, Mr. Palmer 'has been harassed by superiors and co-workers, sidelined with no work assignment, shut out of the company's computers, denied bonuses and hounded by death threats.'"
Re:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise? (Score:5, Informative)
Because putting it in writing in an formal internal complaint creates a paper trail that forces the company to either address it or face criminal liability. It's no longer an wink-wink-nudge-nudge, under the table thing. Now the company can no longer say they didn't know about it when the FBI comes calling.
Re:Is anyone surprised they do this? (Score:5, Informative)
Banning the exec from coming to the USA might also be a deterrent.
Rounding up all the current visa holder documents and giving them a good once-over would be fun too. But don't stop at Infosys.
Seriously, though, my bank rarely lets a withdrawal go by unnoticed, but our government can't keep track of work visas, much less tourists. Pathetic. No one in government or business as a dog in this fight - they all have reasons to avert their eyes from illegal immigration in all of its forms, work visas and H1whatevers included, and no less grievous than all the other forms.
Re:How are they doing it? (Score:5, Informative)
Typically the visitor is employed in India and his/her Indian salary will continue to accrue in India. They give an expense account, which will be almost 40% of US salary. The workers usually live quite frugally and save it all and take it home. It is tax free in India because it is not really pay, just left over money in the expense account. Way back in 1980s when they offered such a deal to me, they were offering me 5000 Rs a month in India (twice the pay of a commissioned officer or as they call in India gazetted officer) and an expense account of $1800 a month. US starting salaries those days were around $36000 for an engineering undergrad.
This has been going on for a long time. I know of people who came like on B1. I know people who applied for B-1, the embassy in India smelled a rat and got "banned from applying for USA for two years" stamped on their passports.
Me, I came as F-1, struggled as PIGS (poor indian grad student) got H1-B then green card and then hurried to get my citizenship just in time to vote against Santorum in the senate election. woot!
Re:How are they doing it? (Score:3, Informative)
> Given the amount that I've personally spent on legal immigration, this pisses me off a little bit.
You must have a nice, even temper. I'm also a legal immigrant to the US, and this stuff pisses me off a lot.
I was an academic H1-B for a while, and got a pretty good view of the hoops that my host university had to go through to do it, so I understand about the hassle and expense referred to in the article. The consensus where I did this was that the regulatory burden was mostly due to the corporate history of cheating, and they resented it a fair amount, but they were also pretty much terrified of screwing it up, even accidentally, because this might jeopardize their numerous federal grants. They were very, very careful to comply with all the regs.
If we could find a way to put that kind of fear into the corporate types, this problem would go away.
Re:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise? (Score:2, Informative)
A good portion of the world is Monotheistic, the majors religions that are not Monotheistic are not praying to Roman Gods.
Jesus +1 Romans -1
False cause. Jesus died centuries before Christianity was anything more than a persecuted cult. If anything, the Roman emperor Constantine I was more directly involved with saving Christianity from total obscurity.
Re:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise? (Score:4, Informative)
They still only made things worse for themselves by mistreating this dude. Both legally over the visa fraud, and over their retaliatory actions against dudeman.. though I'd think the latter would be a civil matter.
Re:He still draws a check from Infosys? (Score:2, Informative)
It says explicitly not that in the article though.
But in December, he said, he received only about $3,000 of a $45,000 bonus he believed he had earned. Since Infosys has assigned him no work at all since last April, he received no bonus for 2011, losing one-third of his income.
If a loss of $42,000 means he lost 1/3 of his income, he's still collecting $84,000 a year.
Re:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise? (Score:3, Informative)
A good portion of the world is Monotheistic, the majors religions that are not Monotheistic are not praying to Roman Gods. Jesus +1 Romans -1
False cause. Jesus died centuries before Christianity was anything more than a persecuted cult. If anything, the Roman emperor Constantine I was more directly involved with saving Christianity from total obscurity.
Jesus died decades before Christianity was anything more than a persecuted cult. Ever hear of Nero?
Re:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually there are two legal reasons to write the obviously futile letter to the company. The first is mitigation of damages: you have to give the wrongdoer the opportunity to stop the wrongdoing (and to stop running up the plaintiff's damages tab). The second is scienter; if they receive this letter and keep on with the wrongdoing even now, after they can be proved to have knowledge of it, this raises the inference that the wrongdoing is intentional (as opposed to merely negligent) and this could be the basis for a claim for punitive damages.
Re:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise? (Score:5, Informative)