Whistleblower In Limbo After Reporting H-1B Visa Fraud At Infosys

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.'"

Comments

Re:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise?

[crazyjj]

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:How are they doing it?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

B-1 visas is the tourist visa. Typically you can stay in the country legally for some 4 months or 6 months once you enter. The duration is decided by the immigration officer depending on the purpose of the visit. Typically Indian seniors visiting their sons/daughters would ask for 4 or 6 months. Once you are in, you cant get a driver's license, you cant get a SSN, you are not supposed to work, you can't get a US pay through any US Bank. But if you actually show up for work with a jacket and a laptop and call yourself "contractor visiting from off shore site to provide close technical support" no one is going ask for the employment authorization. So you work, though you are not supposed to.

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:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise?

[mbstone]

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.