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Infosys Fined $35M For Illegally Bringing Programmers Into US On Visitor Visas
McGruber writes "The U.S. government fined Infosys $35 million after an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department found that the Indian company used inexpensive, easy-to-obtain B-1 visas meant to cover short business visits — instead of harder-to-get H-1B work visas — to bring an unknown number of its employees for long-term stays. The alleged practice enabled Infosys to undercut competitors in bids for programming, accounting and other work performed for clients, according to people close to the investigation. Infosys clients have included Goldman Sachs Group, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. Infosys said in an email that it is talking with the U.S. Attorney's office, 'regarding a civil resolution of the government's investigation into the company's compliance' with employment-record 'I-9 form' requirements and past use of the B-1 visa. A company spokesman, who confirmed a resolution will be announced Wednesday, said Infosys had set aside $35 million to settle the case and cover legal costs. He said the sum was 'a good indication' of the amount involved."
I'm sure Infosys made more than $35mln by bringing those programmers in the way they did. Aside from not having to pay for the H1B visas, they could pay the programmers much less this way. Of course nothing will change. They'll start doing the same thing again. These settlements show when you have enough money, anything is legal.
When is the punishment going to be "No, you're out of business, you fraud. You don't play fair. You cost us jobs. You're GONE."
These bastards *made* more than 35 million off the scam. They're turning a profit off it.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
F1 visas?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-Valley_University
Anything to get rid of those pesky American workers.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
For each and every position which they did not higher industry median wage for they should pay 3 times the difference in wages + benefits (including pay-ins to the government) that were not disbursed. Further they should also have to pay some type of fine per position, per (year/quarter) that the violations occurred.
In other words, they should for SURE show a net loss for this bad behavior. If the behavior is egregious enough those in authority at the time should also face real jail time.
Anything less than that is a slap on the wrist and will not curb this behavior among companies who look at the balance sheet and conclude that the fines are a cost of doing business.
We're missing step #2, which is "And since you're defrauding the government among other customers, you're blacklisted from doing business with them again."
$35m isn't a drop in the bucket.
Dump H1B. Instead of giving out Visa for foreign nationals, we should try to KEEP foreign graduates in this country - make it easier for foreign students graduating from US colleges to live and work in the US.
This is no brainer - many of the best and brightest from all over the world are already here in our universities.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
They are not fining the workers, they are fining the company that brought them in illegally.
The imported employees get spun off and transferred around so fast that the government loses track of them.
Probably find dozens of them working on Obamacare web site right now.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
There are both good and bad reasons to grant Visas to tech workers. We should not turn down genuine talent that wants to work here. Having bright minds emigrate, work, live, contribute, and integrate here is probably one of the biggest foundations of America's success.
What we don't want is a bunch of scum fucks importing slave-pay workers to save a buck. I say bring in the IT/tech talent, but on the condition they are paid competitive wages and compensation (And enforce that with some teeth!). You also need to make sure they have freedom and mobility so their sponsor company can't hold their visa over them as a form of extortion.
Granting guest workers MORE privileges and protections will ensure that they're less attractive to unscrupulous outfits looking to save money instead of hiring available domestic talent. Companies that genuinely need foreign talent will happily pay for it.
The imported employees get spun off and transferred around so fast that the government loses track of them.
Imagine a day when our total surveillance is applied to something useful like flagging people who've overstayed their visas and looking for patterns of abuse.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I am angered and saddened by what companies like Infosys have done to the US immigration system. I remember having to fight really hard to get my first H1B in the US because of those companies (I got my US higher ed paid by the NSF yet I'm not American, and I'm not a programmer).
After they have completely wrecked the H1B system they are now going to wreck the visitor visa system.
I am angry because they destroyed the reputation of the H1B system, one of the few legal ways to become a citizen. I am saddened because Americans are have a stupid immigration debate on fundamentally illegals, yet leave such monsters prowling the halls of congress.
It's sad but probably true.
Infosys is not the only one gaming the system. My fortune 20 company is addicted to these "by the pound consultants" from the likes of Infosys/Tata/Berlasoft/you-know-who-you-are as well. There is zero effort put into sourcing local staff and the company pays substantial sums to these firms (who pocket half or more of the hourly rate) when they could just as easily get local employees for the same cost. Then there's the poor sods that are being raped by several levels of middle men and have to live 10 to a flat to make ends meet. The only real benefit to the local firm is the ability to extract hours out of these poor saps that local employees would balk at...as well as the ability to hire/fire on a whim rather than engage in any significant long-term planning.
The end result is a revolving door of consultants, poor productivity, poor knowledge retention, and poor morale on the part of both the "wage slaves" and the local staff who are interacting with them. And it's readily apparent that this local firm could hire local staff for approximately the same money and improve productivity and morale at the "cost" of not being able to bully wage slaves into working 60 hour weeks for a pittance (once the contractor firm cut is extracted).
Let's end the practice of enriching the TCS/Infosys companies of the world at the expense of college grads in this country (both foreign born and native born).
First there was the green card
Then it got slow, bloated and hard to get.
So they invented the H1-B which was quick and easy.
Then it got slow, bloated and hard to get.
So they invented the guest worker pass
continue....
Just fix the green card and the others are unnecessary. If someone is a net benefit to the country, there's no reason to limit their stay.
The US government provided the visas and the visa rules to Infosys. It looks to me that they took the hint. The US does not look like it 'wants' people on H1s or Green cards because it makes it a stupidly slow, expensive and complex process to get them. The message they send by making the B1 relatively easier to get is - "Get a B1, we want to you get a B1, not those other visas".
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Or intercepting communication that indicates government corruption and automatically uploading it to wikileaks :D
$35 million fine, eh? So I imagine that means that Infosys was actually able to make $1 billion+ in profit using this tactic? The fines for white collar crime never even come close to making the practice of breaking the law unprofitable. They'll probably even get the govt to issue a statement of no wrong done to get them to agree to not fight the settlement. Such has happened half a dozen times with Goldman Sachs. They're found to break the law, make billions doing it, get fined less than 1% of the profit and get the govt to say they did nothing wrong.
Expect to see more companies adopting this abuse of the Visa system as standard practice. If Infosys made $35.001M profit using this tactic, any business would see themselves as negligent if they did not immediately start breaking these laws.
Crime DOES pay kids. And it pays BIG. Just make sure it is white-collar crime and you do it in the name of a corporation. Even though white-collar crime costs 10x as much to the economy and kills 11x as many people as street crime, those in our society just do not care.
Is every company run by crooks?
It sure seems so, and anything not expressively illegal is fine.
Is that why everything is so fucked up.
And when you do get caught oh well its just a fine.
No harm no foul.
Crass acts of willful disrepect towards labor laws should result in the most severe fines and punishment available. In addition, the ones responsible for hiring these workers should be fined 1M apiece and sentenced to 1 year hard labour.
Yep! And relize the imports are the ones who couldn't find work at home probably because they suck at it, but because that will get 1/4 the compensation a native born worker would, they end up a hot commodity... And we wonder why we have economic problems! Americans can't or won't be able to pay the bills in the coming years... Go figure!
And yet, Obama lets millions(?) of illegal immigrants take low-skilled jobs from U.S. workers, without consequence. He actually knowingly lets them stay; he even has the Border Patrol release them.
As a (former) H1B myself this truly pisses me off to no end. I came here for my undergrad for a quality education (dropped close to 80K$ being an international student) at a top university and graduated with enviable grades and I had to struggle to find a job simply because companies like Infosys illegally place thousands of workers on jobs that otherwise people like myself or US citizens/residents would be doing.
H1B (rightfully) evokes negative feeling in the American populace for this exact reason. Companies like Infosys thru their illegal staffing practices are responsible for formulating the image of an H1B the broken english speaking trained monkey who can type and is willing to work for pennies on the dollar with his head down. I really hope that in the coming years this image changes coz there are thousands of us who come here to get a world class education (at a premium cost) and expect to make a living here.
Peace.
I think people are confusing H1B (which have their own problems), with the B-1 visas that Infosys was caught abusing...
H1B are for employing people that live HERE to work HERE and are paid at a level to live HERE. B-1 visa are for people that live THERE, but are temporarily working HERE, but are paid to live THERE (which is generally much lower). For example, a person employed with the same company but lives say in India, that needs to come to the US to attend a meeting, or conference, or perhaps for a couple months for training or maybe even negotiate a contract in person would need a B-1 to get into the country (you technically can't do any of these things on a tourist visa).
The duration of an H1B is 3 years (extendable to 6 years), the duration of a B-1 is typically 6 months (extendable to 1 year). Think of the B-1 as a visitor visa to do technical visiting (there is a separate P-visa for an athlete or artist to make a performance in the US for money which is another type of visa).
The abuse that Infosys was doing is that they were submitting manufactured documentation for the B-1 that they were coming to the US to attend training, meetings or conference, but employing B-1 visa folks to work on long term projects. That is a big NO-NO because then you can paying foreign wages (instead of H1B equivalent wages) to people work on projects even though they are here, undercutting everyone (including H1Bs).
Infosys could have gotten the "death-sentence" (which some companies have gotten) which is no B-1 visas for a year, but they are of course big enough to avoid that and only need to pay $35M. This slap on the wrist is what to get upset about, not tangle this up with the separate H1B discussion. At least H1Bs are supposed to get paid a prevailing wage and their numbers are supposed to be limited, so at least on paper, it's reasonable. There are none of the similar statutory limitations on a B-1, so when you are abusing it, you are really going to town.
+1
I can just imagine someone screaming that and suddenly all the programmers running out of their cubicles in panic!
So many problems will be addressed by that.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
These were short term visas. Require these 'visitors' sponsors to delivery proof of exit (plane tickets, etc) or deliver the 'visitors' to INS for deportation for overstaying. Failure by the sponsor results in daily fines to cover 3x costs of arrest and deportation, and equal punitive damages. Too many and these sponsors lose their privilege to use these visas, fire at least 3 years.
And after, say, 7 days overstay, fine the sponsors client where the visitor was working, which is registered in advance.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Royal Bank of Canada did the same shit here in Toronto. Fired a bunch of tenured people "after" they trained their own replacements without knowing it. Bloody disgusting.
I'm sure Infosys made more than $35mln by bringing those programmers in the way they did. Aside from not having to pay for the H1B visas, they could pay the programmers much less this way.
Why are you guys looking only at the dollar $$$igns ?
What Infosys had trespassed is way much than mere money.
What Infosys had indeed done was breaking THE SOVEREIGNTY of The United States of America !!!
Every country has its own set of laws, and the laws signified that that country has its own sovereignty over what transpired INSIDE its own border.
What Infosys did, by bringing in FOREIGNERS from OUTSIDE of the country, and put them to work ILLEGALLY, INSIDE the country, Infosys has IGNORED THE SOVEREIGNTY RIGHT of the United States of America !!!
And that company, Infosys, itself is a FOREIGN COMPANY !
Why are we allowing a FOREIGN COMPANY to carry out such an illegal act of violating our nation's sovereignty, inside our country ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
the IRS has been cracking down on companies that hire contractors for what are really full time positions. Contractors pay a lot less in taxes (well, the companies do, the contractor gets screwed but over all it's less tax revenue) and generally cost local gov'ts more.
The people winning are the corporations that get to drive down labor costs while using the United States' expansive military to make the world safe for their bank accounts.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Hint: I am in India, though I do not work for "Indian" company.
All my friends in TCS, Infosys, Wipro etc., went to US through B1 route if the duration was less than 2-3 months. B1 Visa explicitly forbids working, but is for meetings and stuff.
Yet they went on customer sites etc.,
They are even trained to give specific answers to Immigration and say a lot about meetings and stuff. Some are even booked as members on cheap conferences spaced 15-20 days apart so it all looks like the real deal.
These companies are unethical scum, and due to their bottom feeding attitude, they have spoilt the reputation of the "Indian software Engineer". The world now views the Indian software engineer as a low cost labour intensive guy fit for only data entry with the help of a spell checker.
That brush gets broadly applied to us product design software engineers doing real software work, and getting 2-3X the salary the bottom feeders pay.
Speaking of ethics, employees of these companies take their Earned or Paid leave, and then come to office, so that do not lose out the govt sop of leave travel allowance. But any actual leave is hard to come by unless you are on bench.
During their foreign stints, they were forced to handover any allowance in lue of extra working hours given to them by the employer(some US employers used to give sops) to their parent company.
If you are hiring a cheap bottom feeder from India, all I can say is "All the best". The low quality work will blow up in your face 1-2 years from now, and no amount of patchwork will fix it.
Then you will go to a bar after your layoff and lament how you only get cheap unskilled monkeys from India. But the fact is you are the retard who went bottom feeding and found only slime.
sure it is. you don't think rich conservatives get a good laugh at this stuff? It's even funnier cause they still get you the old fashioned way.
and that is just comical.
Isn't the purpose of the DHS to fight terrorism not crime? Ultimately the DHS will be a national police force.
Seriously, Infosys and other companies that play games like this, should be denied business licenses, but at the least, should not be able to get any gov. contracts any more.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I've worked in more than one US based corp. and they ALL do this. They all have immigration lawyers on payroll who write the templates for the invitation letters and they all have HR people coaching the first timers to the US on B1/B2 visas.
If a company is above board, all they have to do, is offer up a reward of getting H1B's local LEGAL jobs, if they will rat out situations in which they are employed illegally. By doing this, any company that chooses to cheat, will quickly get nailed.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
HSBC fucking laundered money for terrorists and all they got was a large fine. WHat else was going to happen to Infosys?
Lame, low governmental fines = The Cost of Doing Business. I suspect they could find this amount under their couch cushions.
Major Federal violations such as this should _start_ at 10% of the total corporations' gross profits encompassing the entire time span of the violation, rapidly rising with discovery of any willful cover-up.
I've worked for several companies that hired big outsourcing contractors and they were using B1s. Bring them here for 3 months and go home for 1 month, rinse, repeat. It was actually preferred among most developers because then we could work side by side with these people and help them get up to speed rather than just tossing code and requirements over a wall and hoping for the best.
I met some of my best friends this way. I really wish there was a way that they could have stayed.
H1Bs are valuable because they can't quit. So companies can pay them later and say 'they work harder than americans will work for less'. not if they can quit. Void all contracts signed in India as unenforceable under american law (and with a greencard they can't be deported for quitting, so it wont matter if there are penalties in India). limit employment agreements to 1 year. So after 1 year they can quit. None of these 'you can never quit' contracts or pay a huge fine.
then you will see the real value. Every h1b I ever met quit as soon as they got there greencard for more money. Cognizant which is the largest h1b importer does not even file for greencards for most of their h1bs (google them you will see forums wtih 2000+ posts in a thread complaining about how they cant get greencards).
if the goal is to bring the best and the brightest over here. dont we want them to stay? dont we want them to start businesses so they can hire people? h1bs are not allowed to work for their own business. they can't quit. companies generally force them move around the country at their own expense (they claim relocation, but its just 1 week in a hotel with no moving expenses). no raises. long hours. you complain, you are deported.
so just make it a new greencard program. then we will see the value of h1bs. however, we also need to limit the contracts. Plus if they have greencards and do not have the fear of deportation hanging over them, they will be more likely to sue their employers for racial discrimination and unfair labor practices. H1bs make less. they are almost all from india. american born people make more. This is arguably racist. they can't sue or they get deported.
I would say that two steps should occur:
a) Fine
b) Deny any future applications for H-1B or B-1 Visas. If that's not quite doable, just block the B-1's as they're what was abused.
"You knowingly and illegally abused the process, you're not allowed to participate anymore" seems just to me.
They don't have any professionalism, and just wonder why the companies are sub-contracting for this.
It's not a matter of xenophobia, it's simple, they are accepting contracts that are impossible for other companies to cover. Sometimes, contracts for free... That is very uncompetitive. When the others are out of business, they will start to make profit. Europe with all the recession needs to protect against those uncompetitive companies...
Every h1b I have worked with makes far less than Americans. This is essentially racist. I think American citizen programmers and technical people should fight for the rights of the immigrant h1bs against their racist employers and demand they be paid comparable wages.
there is actually a really good case here. h1bs won't fight it because they are likely to be deported. which just adds to the racist argument.
But tthatis not the only company. Sovereignbank was bringing more than 300 people from spain as tourist to work and after a while they start coming arounf newyork because of the security
Formalin is a chemical compound used to preserve any thing which are required in research or other purpose. But if it is applied to preserve food such as fruits, fish etc. for long time & by applying in large amount it will be harmful for human body if any human being eat these preserved foods. It can create many physical disorders in human body including liver damage, kidney damage, cancer or many other disorders. This chemical is used by some greedy businessman in 3rd world country & that's the number of patients are increasing day by day. It should be stopped as soon as possible otherwise this problem will get worst in situation day by day.
That there's gambling going on here.
I used to be
US visa to Indians must be pegged to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_caste and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_caste to prevent creeping http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/ in America.
Casteism