Posted on 07/08/2026 7:09:18 PM PDT by Red Badger
In December 2025, India seized over 100,000 forged diplomas from 28 universities that had been accepted by American companies for employment.
In a bombshell report by a former U.S. diplomat, Mahvash Siddiqui alleged that 80% to 90% of the H-1B visa applications from India she reviewed involved fraudulent documentation or unqualified applicants.
What is even more alarming is that some of those applicants could now be serving as physicians, surgeons and in various roles as health care professionals across the United States due to decades-old policies that incentivize the speedy hiring of foreign health care professionals.
A compounded immigration issue that could be an American public health and safety crisis, putting American lives at risk.
Well-qualified, skilled Indian experts bring immense value to the U.S. Yet the actions of some who exploit the immigration system with fake degrees and certifications have cast a damaging shadow over the well-qualified Indian people.
India is the biggest source country for physicians and surgeons in the U.S., and the second largest of registered nurses.
However, the Indian healthcare education pipeline raises serious questions as to whether they should be blanketly accepted into American healthcare systems. To put it into perspective, India’s cost for a medical degree is reportedly as low as $800, and Indian students can become general practitioners in as little as 5.5 years. In comparison, it takes 11-15 years to become a doctor in the U.S., including undergraduate, medical school and residency training, and even longer for specialized training, and it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for tuition and living expenses.
In 2020, three Indian American doctors were accused of performing fake research on fake data. All three doctors held high-level positions, including the chief of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Utah, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a surgeon based in Chicago. The three doctors published these “findings” in major medical journals and several research papers, some of which addressed potential COVID-19 treatments. Mandeep Mehra, one of the doctors accused and who offered an unconditional apology, now actively serves as the medical director for the Heart and Vascular Center at a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital in Boston.
Another Indian doctor, Anoop Shankar, who was awarded a Genius visa, claimed to have graduated from India’s top medical school, worked as a 21-year-old doctor, and researched population-wide diseases. Thus, West Virginia University hand-picked Shankar to be the first endowed professor in its new School of Public Health. Yet, there is no record of him attending medical school or publishing research, as he claimed he had written on his visa resume. Shankar was later forced out of WVU, but he later published medical research in the Journal of the American Medical Association and landed a position at Virginia Commonwealth University. Shankar left the US around 2014. In 2018, US authorities filed federal fraud/immigration charges and sought his extradition from India (after he reportedly spent time in the UAE). It’s unclear whether Shankar is still living in India.
In November 2025, a man named Samrat Mukherjee, an ex-paramedic based in Louisiana who never completed an undergraduate degree, faked completing medical school and instead embroidered his clothes with “M.D.” and “flight surgeon,” was granted full access to many hospitals in the Baton Rouge area. For years, Mukherjee treated patients, ordered prescriptions, and even assumed the identity of two actual doctors. Mukherjee later pleaded guilty to a felony count of making false statements relating to health care matters.
This past week, Dr. Ashok Muralidaran, who earned his medical degree from Madras Medical College in India, was sued for $17 million after he installed a heart valve upside down in a 13-year-old girl. The error was later discovered as parents say their daughter was on the brink of death, and another hospital saved her by performing a corrective procedure that required stopping the girl’s heart and placing her on cardiac bypass.
The issue is that the U.S. has two main defenses against imposter doctors: a supervised residency and the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE). However, states are actively easing licensing requirements for foreign-trained physicians due to doctor shortages, while the USMLE can be cheated on by insiders and early test-takers. In January 2024, the USMLE invalidated the scores of 832 test-takers, primarily international medical graduates based in Nepal. An investigation exposed a massive cheating ring using messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram to share a 1,000-page leaked question document known as “The Savior”.
These examples and loopholes raise serious questions as to how many foreign healthcare workers are actively treating American patients who fake credentials, faked medical school, and/or cheated on the American medical exams, and therefore are incompetent and dangerous to the American people.
Companies have even put out healthcare job postings only open to those who hold immigrant statuses such as J-1, H-1B, and O-1. One example is a posting by a hospital based in Maryland, UPMC, which put out a job posting for a Hospitalist Physician, eligible for a $30,000 bonus with J-1 and H-1 B visa sponsorship.
Not to mention, the growing number of AI deep fake doctors taking advantage of telehealth systems and lax safeguards for AI chatbots.
Concerns over the validity of credentials held by some Indian nationals entering the U.S. have prompted serious consideration about who is serving in critical medical and healthcare positions. The problem, seen within a tight-knit Indian community, has led some to ask whether a culture of credential fraud is now spreading to the United States.
The challenge facing the U.S. healthcare system is the growing reliance on foreign-trained doctors, when the U.S. should instead be investing in training more American medical professionals.
The U.S. search for foreign-trained doctors stemmed from a 1997 Congressional cap on Medicare-funded residency positions. Thus, hospitals have little incentive beyond these Medicare-funded slots, due to high training costs. While U.S. medical school graduates have risen in recent years, these residency barriers have been unable to keep up with the demand, forcing medical school graduates who were unable to be matched with residencies to seek other options like research and public health, where they are competing with foreigners for placement.
The bottom line is that essential credentials across the STEM industries have been fabricated and are now outcompeting American citizens for jobs and key educational opportunities. In fact, in the past few years alone, big tech companies have fired over hundreds of thousands of American workers, only to hire majority Indian immigrants on various visas.
The American people deserve the best medical care and should never have to question whether their healthcare professional is qualified or the service they’re providing. Whether it’s overreliance on foreign-trained doctors, DEI initiatives, or fake medical degrees, none of these have a place in the healthcare of Americans.
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They should rename it the H-1BS visa.
Every programmer knows this.
There should be zero Indians in America
Ah yes, standard deflection. Nicely done.
Bobby is a dot ...
I was just sarcastic.
But there’s no way they’re going to scrap the system because employers will whine “we can’t find anybody!”
Despite the fact that every job posting gets a minimum of 50-60 applicants (low side) or as many as 750 (high side).
There is no labor shortage and anyone who tells you otherwise is full of it.
(I have LinkedIn Premium and can see how many people clicked apply)
We love Medicare Advantage. Aetna is great insurance.
You’re really having fun with your foreign doctors. My Indian doctor didn’t try to persuade me to get a Covid shot, which I appreciated. It was a white doctor who was all freaked out about Covid. That’s when I switched to the Indian doctor.
The American corporations are doing well with foreign born techies. This is exactly how capitalism should operate. Corporations should be free to hire who serves their best interest. Government should not be telling corporations whom they can hire or fire. That would be fascism. Discrimination based on race, national origin or gender is against the current law.
Medicare advantage insurance from Humana has saved us enough to buy a new house. My wife’s cancer treatment bills were running $37,000 average per month for 6 years. Humana paid all bills except for out of pocket maximum averaging $4500-$5000/ year.
Bobbyvotes = Born in India.
India seized over 100,000 forged diplomas from 28 universities that had been accepted by American companies for employment.
India is the honest broker here catching fraud and informing victims of this fraud.
And proud of it! Extreme success in United States on my own without any government help, not a single red cent collected in unemployment, food stamps, or any other welfare. Living the American dream. Had top secret clearance while working at Argonne National Labs due to exposure to classified data.
Aetna Medicare Advantage is similar. Its Cadillac insurance.
“...how Doctors tendency to “treat the numbers”.”
My son (minor asthma) got Covid in 2020 and his girlfriend drove him to the hospital and he walked in on his own. His O2 levels were VERY low - 78% iirc. Below 90 is bad.
Luckily his first doctor got him settled in and told him “You are very strong (26 years old at the time) - heck you walked in with such low numbers. At these numbers you are “supposed” to be on a ventilator, but you present well. If any other doctor says they are going to put you on a ventilator don’t let them until I see you - here’s my number. Do NOT let anyone put you on a ventilator.
At that time I think most doctors realized that going on a ventilator was a death sentence. We were so worried. Ten days later he was released and is healthy still.
You nailed it!
Data from Federal government agencies, such as the USCIS and Department of Labor :
USCIS’s H-1B Employer Data Hub :
https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/h-1b-employer-data-hub
PERM, LCA (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3) data and statistics - U.S. Department of Labor :
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/performance
H-1B (and H-1B1, E-3) LCA Labor Condition Application filings, which are far higher than the number of H-1Bs actually granted. The LCA is the first step for a company to take in applying for an H-1B. The rows are order by number of LCA/H-1B applications at respective companies from highest downward :
Thousands of Middlemen Are Gaming the H-1B Program (Bloomberg) - shortcut :
Industrialized Fraud in the H-1B program :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KumpIWZ6ZpI
During the Biden administration, H-1B visa holders were buying houses with 97-100% financing :
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4379360/posts
Here’s a graphic on how OPTs have flattened wages :
More on STEM-OPT visas :
Besides OPT and STEM OPT extensions, there is also CPT, Curricular Practical Training, which foreign students on F-1 and M-1 visas may participate in after one year of study! :
https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-2-part-f-chapter-5
https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents/combination-documents
https://ifspp.substack.com/p/graduating-into-second-place
https://ifspp.substack.com/p/data-on-dallas-metro-engineering
H-1Bs don’t go home :
https://x.com/LayoffAI/status/2071566853009277385
It's always been a lie.
They play the race card because it works, and because in their crappy societies, lying, cheating, bribing, and other crimes are A-OK.
A lot of the reason that this country is going down the tubes is because we are importing this garbage.
Trump is right to get them out.
The Rats want them here because the Rats have the same character traits as the Third World cheatmeisters.
All they need is a few more of them and they can flip election after election.
White boys' credentials are raked over the coals over and over and over again. The FMGs -- no sweat to get a high-paying job with phony credentials. This article pretty much proves what we've suspected for a long, long time.
Of course some obscure Dr. Nick Upstairs Medical College is going to be fraudulent.
Corporate medicine wants to screw establishment physicians. The universities are libs and they want to screw over conservative homegrown physicians by flooding in third world physicians.
Somewhere along the way LOTs of money changes hands, almost all at the politician level.
It is despicable.
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