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

Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise?

[crazyjj]

Jack B. Palmer first made a quiet complaint through internal channels at Infosys,

Was he really naive enough to think that these were the actions of some rogue managers and that the company would be thrilled to have him put it all in writing? Did he expect them to send him a Thank You letter, beginning with "Thank you for putting this illegal activity, that we've been quietly doing for years under the table, into writing. We really appreciate that you've opened us up now to criminal liability and that your complaint will cost us a fortune. We're so glad that you did this instead of looking the other way and keeping your fucking mouth shut like everyone else in the company. Here's your bonus!"

Dude, if you're going to be a whistleblower, accept that it means you have to burn that bridge. There is no going back across it and expecting everything to be the same afterwards. Being a whistleblower means making the right moral choice and then paying the price for it. Yeah that sucks--but what's new, huh? Jesus and Superman didn't fight the Romans and Lex Luther without expecting some backlash, you know.

Re:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise?

[Chris Mattern]

Apparently the Romans *and* Lex Luthor. Good thing he had Superman on his side. Must've been one helluva team-up.

Re:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Neither did the British Empire, or the Incan empire, or the Japanese Empire, or the Russian Empire, or the Galactic empire. Man Jesus is awesome at killing empires!

If you ever build something that might be called an empire, its probably safer to just call it a principality, lest Jesus kill it.

Re:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise?

[interval1066]

He wasn't really a whistleblwer. The action he took is described as a "quiet internal memo". The story only blew after 17 months of the company screwing with him. They should have thanked him, at least told him they were working on the situation, and left him alone, If they had taken that action, we probably would have never heard of it. Now, they come out smelling like garbage, he has a hell of a lawsuit he can throw at them, and all becuase they wanted to act like babies when some one told THEM that they were screwing up. I don't think naivete has anything to do with this.

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:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the not so distant future, Superman's clash with Lex Luthor results in him retreating into a strange chamber. Before Superman's eyes, the world shifts, imagery of the America he knew is replaced with what looks to be ancient Roman stylings. With the aid of dissident Centurion Wayne, he is able to get the time-chamber working again and Superman is propelled to the ancient past. But not the past we know of, an ancient world where Roman rule is enforced by Lex Luthor's cunning and genious. In this strange alien past, Superman finds the only one who can help him right the timeline, Jesus.

Re:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise?

[causality]

That pretty much sums it up.

Nice "me too" but no, not entirely. There's a lesson here for other would-be whistleblowers.

The lesson? Don't try to be a nice guy by going through channels, keeping it internal, identifying yourself, etc. Instead, quietly collect all the absolutely damning evidence you can gather, be certain that it names names, and then bring it straight to the authorities. If you can remain anonymous while doing that, like an informant, then so much the better.

If this is how someone who raises a benign warning is going to be treated, then just fucking nail them as hard as you can. They are obviously unworthy of someone who wants to be amiable and play softball, as one would expect of the kind of sociopaths who create this situation in the first place. Instead of letting this frighten you into reluctant silence, just don't put the ball in their court to begin with as that's terrible strategy.

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.

Re:Was he really naive enough to expect otherwise?

[cusco]

management will be criminally prosecuted

Seriously? You apparently haven't been paying attention to world events for, oh, the last four decades or so. The only executives that ever go to jail are those who lose rich people's money. Tyson got caught, repeatedly, paying truckers $200/head to bring illegals from Mexico to work in their Arkansas chicken processing plants to avoid having to pay workers compensation claims (injured on the job? must be time to call Immigration!) Their penalty? A fine of about half the amount that they saved by abusing the mojados. IIRC, no one was even disciplined internally. Infosys won't even be banned from working US gov't contracts.

He still draws a check from Infosys?

[KrazyDave]

They should just outsource his job - true poetic justice.

Re:Is anyone surprised they do this?

[h4rr4r]

Of course, and that is why the punishments for these things have to make it not profitable. The simple way to do that is ban those people from ever coming back to the USA and fine the company millions. If the execs knew about it toss them in the clink.

Guest Worker programs == pro-employer Fraud.

[sethstorm]

"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.'

Hopefully this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to more of these kinds of things.

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.'"

Isn't that something called retaliation? People that have a vested interest in moving work offshore really hate it when there is evidence that you're doing it based on fraud - especially fraud that exposes them for being against US citizens.

If Infosys willing to do everything against this guy, he sure must have something damning enough to warrant death threats.

How are they doing it?

[TheSpoom]

How are they getting around it? Are these workers completely undocumented? Are they lying at the border? Did they not fill out I-9s? Because if they filled out I-9s, and those were looked at by USCIS, this sort of thing would be picked up pretty goddamn quick.

Given the amount that I've personally spent on legal immigration, this pisses me off a little bit. I'm not exactly surprised, but it seems to be yet another case where breaking the law as an individual would have adverse consequences (e.g. in this case, where one would be banned from the United States between three years and indefinitely, depending on the overstay) while breaking the same law as a corporation is completely overlooked.

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:Gather evidence.

[larry bagina]

I bet infosys is feeling stupid for outsourcing the death threats instead of using American IT workers to plant kiddy porn on his computer.

Re:Not news

[cpu6502]

"Classified" material that never should have been classified, but instead was trying to cover-up military blunders. Example: The whereabouts of the journalists who were killed. The military said "We don't know" to the poor family members, but they knew all along it was a friendly fire incident.

Other examples: Covering-up the shootings of kids and torture of POWs. I'm glad Manning and other wikileaks persons are not "just following orders" while military/war crimes are being committed. We the People deserve to know what is actually happening.