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."

Comments

Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Big deal

[CyprusBlue113]

There is a pretty easy cure for all of this...

Just re-write the H1-B laws so that all H1-B workers must be paid 20% more than industry standard for the region or area the job is located in. That, or have a 20-40% premium on each worker's salary paid by the hiring company as an excise tax.

I bet that shit would stop cold right away.

It isn't enough. A lot of the draw of H1B is the lack of mobility. Let them freely change jobs and allow them to have a 1 year grace period between jobs if they've been in their first job for a year.

When

[msobkow]

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.

H1B Scam

[oldhack]

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.

Re:Missing Step 2

[Anonymous Coward]

"35m isn't a drop in the bucket."

Yes it is.

Revenue US$ 7.39 billion (2013)
Operating income US$ 1.90 billion (2013)
Profit US$ 1.72 billion (2013)

Further proof of the H1B visa myth

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Are you really really surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.