As previously reported on this blog, the H1B applications for highly skilled technical workers opened up and the quotas were exceeded in less than a day. The kicker to this story – not all of those visas may go to highly qualified professionals (link via DesiPundit).
From Scaling New Heights blog:
“You know what. This girl who has just 3year degree from India and on H4 visa here is going to apply for H1B through a desi consultant. Can I also try?â€The desi consultants want my wife who has zero knowledge in IT field to say “Yes†so that they can file H1B visa for her. This sums up how desi consultants work in US and why the 65,000 limit for H1B visa got over in a day.
The blog goes on to talk about how Desi Consultants are milking the system by applying for H1B visas for people not even qualified to apply for one. Excellent read. Also as pointed out in previous posts, a majority of H1B visa applicants are from India and of those applicants, a good amount of visas go to companies like TCS, Wipro and Infosys.
In the meanwhile, the Indian students who come to the US often to get a Masters or a PhD are the ones left high and dry, thanks to bulk applications by the larger companies and unscrupulous practices by Desi Consultants.
Fresh university graduates are vulnerable to being rejected for the H-1B visas designated for skilled workers. A record 150,000 H-1B applications were filed in one day this week, nearly double the number U.S. authorities are allowed to grant in a given fiscal year.
After graduation, they are handed a work permit valid for a year.
So after spending around a million or so in Rupees for getting a Master’s education in the United States, many of these students are left facing a prospect with no forseeable employment in the US. Making it worse is the fact that a large number of candidates with 3 year degrees, certfications courses from shady “hole-in-the-wall” institutions and fake resumes with inflated work experience get the jobs created for these students (this statement is untrue as pointed by Ash in the comments section). Whoever said, “Honesty is the best policy” was clearly dropped on his head as a baby.
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