H1B visa without a job? Money gives it all

AHMEDABAD: An H1B visa without a job in the US! Sounds incredible? Not if you are in Gujarat, ready to take the risk and pay an astronomical sum to be on a foreign shore.

Taking wings was perhaps never so easy before as a swarm of "consultants" out there are providing a populace hung up on immigrating a ticket to their El Dorado. As New York and London beckon, the murky world of fake passports and forged visas, false marriages and deals in lakhs, attract the youth.

For this consultant sitting in his posh office on Gurukul Cross-roads, checks imposed by US immigration authorities matter little. "Entry is extremely difficult now. But, one may go on an H1B visa," he says. But, an H1B visa without an offer letter? Leave it to this "cool guy". For, he has worked out his plan well. "We have tie-ups with some companies in California and New York who would issue an offer letter at a commission. Once the client reaches the US, he is on his own. While the company will put him on stand-by to fox authorities, he will be free to search for a job. Once he finds one, the company will give him a no objection certificate," he explains. The "operation" would cost Rs 4.5 lakh, this correspondent is told.

In the prosperous tobacco-growing area of Anand and Kheda, known as the Charotar, where settling in the US or the UK is the stuff dreams are made of, a "mysterious lady" leads the charge, arranging for visa, getting passports.

"Here we form groups of six to seven people who wish to immigrate. Alkaben then takes the groups to Mumbai where she has her "contacts". "She has never failed," says one Hiteshbhai. And, marriages among relatives are providing the people of Anand a cover to settle in the US as "fake" marital vows are opening up new avenues to get a visa. So, when 24-year-old Ramesh "married" his niece Pinky, 19, nobody raised an eyebrow. "Pinky is a Green Card holder and she just helped Ramesh realise a dream after he was denied visa twice. They later filed for a divorce," says Ramesh's grandfather Jayanti Patel.

The clandestine marriage was held in a village temple with the pundit being called from Rajkot and photographs developed in a studio in Ahmedabad. In Mehsana in north Gujarat, "business" is flourishing as passports fetch as much as Rs 25 lakh and anyone ready to lend a school leaving certificate to people from a particular community can get rich overnight. "People from a community here have become so marked for taking help of illegal means to immigrate that they pay a fortune to get a certificate from a person with the same name but from another community. The rate can go as high as Rs 20 lakh," informs an agent in Mehsana.

"The humshakal (lookalike) business is on the high too. If your lookalike has a passport with multiple entry, buy it from him and ask him to file an FIR. Such lookalikes may earn upto Rs 25 lakh," he informs. "These documents are prepared in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Delhi for anything between Rs 20 and Rs 25 lakh. Called the photo-cut technique, the photograph of the passport-holder is replaced with that of our client," says an Ahmedabad-based consultant Dhirubhai Shah.

And, failure leaves them undaunted. For Mahesh Patel of Mehsana, losing Rs 12 lakh to an agent may have come as a shock but he is determined to carry on. Ferrying passengers in his jeep between Nandasan and Kadi, he wants to make up the loss in two years. For, his dream -- of a life in a foreign land -- never dies.

One more time for the solution to the problems with our economy.

In no particular order of importance.

1. Get rid of government subsidies for offshore investment of US companies. OPIC is the first such program which should go but support of World Bank programs that subsidize the outflow of Capital would be another.

2. Use tariffs on those nations which are engaged in unfair trade practices such as currency manipulation (China and India for example), those nations which refuse to open their markets to US products (China for example with its 50% tariffs on US consumer goods and non tariff barriers), those nations that subsidize competition to American Industry (airbus for example) and those nations which have slave conditions for their workers.

3. Use tariffs and other means to prevent the relocation of jobs offshore that are essential to the national defense. If necessary take control of the company seeking to export vital technology or industry by means of eminent domain (No I do not like this last option and I will only defend its use as an absolute last resort like say in the case of rare earth magnets essential to smart bomb technology).

4. An immediate end to guest worker programs. If people wish to come to the USA to work and make a life let them immigrate according to the rules.

5 Provide economic development zones where the corporate income tax is zero for operations within these zones. In order to operate in this zone a company must agree to only purchase American components if available and employ only American citizens or legal immigrants in these operations. These economic development zones shall be eventually be expanded to include every bit of every state once the benefits are shown I would like them to be totally implemented immediately but I realize4 that may be overreaching.

6. Scale back unnecessary regulation including the tort system. Institute a cap on punitive damages, limits on class action suits, and limits on liability to the actual percentage of liability with no plaintiff able to collect if said plaintiff was involved in the commission of a felony at the time of the alleged tort or was more than 49% negligent in the alleged tort. Note that the loser in a frivolous lawsuit shall pay the attorney fees of the winner. There are many other regulatory structures that also need to be included that need to be included such as repealing the Family leave mandate, getting rid of OSHA etc.

7. Increase the domestic content in purchases by the Department of defense and give absolute preference in non-domestic content to proven allies of the USA over say the French or Germans. The only reason any content for DOD purchase may come from non US allies is that content is not available elsewhere and is essential.

8. Do not allow expense involved in moving operations overseas to be included in business expenses under the IRS code.

9. Prosecute for perjury anyone who has made a false statement in order to employ an H1B or L1 visa worker. I will be lenient on the actual perjurer if he/she was ordered to make this false statement and he/she provides testimony to aid in the conviction of the person ordering the perjury. Just because a person is a CEO does not give them a pass on criminal behavior.

10. Prosecute anyone who orders the transfer of vital defense technology or funds a R&D project that could be of use to our military overseas except to strong allies of the USA. Make the necessary enhancements to our espionage laws so that continued support or funding of any R&D in a nation whose government has threatened the USA is guilty of espionage. The UK and Australia come to mind as meeting these criteria for being eligible for transfer of technology first. There will be other nations and a gradation of what can be transferred to which specific nation. Under no circumstances may technology be transferred to any nation whose government has threatened the USA within five years without a complete change of government or specific exemption from Congress and the administration.

11. Deport all illegal aliens immediately and take measures that prevent the entry of any more illegal aliens. Fine all companies knowingly employing illegal aliens Criminal sanctions should be imposed on anyone helping an illegal alien stay in the USA in violation of our laws.

12. Decrease the punishing levels of taxation on companies and eliminate the double taxation on corporate dividends. See effects of item 5 for how minimal this will be if item 5 covers the entire USA. Eliminate all IRS provisions that inhibit free use of independent contractors by businesses for example section 1706.

13. Eliminate the minimum wage so that the worker can be paid based on productivity. Overtime compensation will remain the same but instead of 150% of the "wage" the worker would receive 150% of the production pay. If one through 13 are enacted # 14 becomes an irrelevancy as no one will be working for that low a wage.

All very good suggestions, but I question the value of this one:

...[end] support of World Bank programs that subsidize the outflow of Capital would be another.

Actually the World Bank is more-or-less self-supporting in that it "loans" money from the proceeds of its $20 billion investment portfolio (also, all of its day-to-day operating expenses come from those investments). Donor nations own proportionate "shares" in the bank based on past contributions, and the U.S. is of course the largest "shareholder" (Japan is second).

And though WB projects are of questionable value, it's also the case that most projects are won by American companies employing American workers. So a large portion of America's previous WB "investment" does in fact come right back to America.

At this very moment, there's actually some rumbling going within the development community about the number (and value) of contracts won by American firms. It seems lost on the complainers that contracts are won in competitive bidding, with the recipient nation having the most say in who does or doesn't measure up. In other words, the recipient nations most often select American companies to perform WB projects.

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