Free Republic

🚨 OMG. A MASSIVE India H-1B visa fraud ring has just been busted...nearly 90% PERCENT of India's visa applications contain FRAUDULENT INFORMATION 100,000 THOUSAND counterfeit certificates have been seized 🤯 "Law enforcement in India claim it has uncovered a network of universities that produce fake degrees which were possibly used to obtain these high skilled H1B visas, including one school which allegedly stole over 36,000 fake degrees. It cost as little as $1,400 for one of those." "And while these are supposed to be high skilled employees during almost all of Biden's time in office, 83% got junior or entry...

The Trump administration said Friday that people with temporary visas seeking to adjust their immigration status to obtain green cards must return to their home countries to “do so through consular processing,” in a major change from current practice. “From now on, an alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson Zach Kahler said in a statement. “When aliens apply from their home country, it reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into...

Mary, a veteran Silicon Valley marketer who can’t find a job, considers herself a victim of an H-1B visa program run amok. Her story, a U.S. native replaced by a foreign-born employee who is willing to work at a significantly lower wage, has become commonplace, particularly in the tech industry. Adding insult to injury, she says, her CEO, who hails from India, told her to train the man he selected to replace her before laying her off.Despite stints at Google and Cisco and two years of job hunting, Mary can no longer compete in a job market saturated with foreign-born...

Indian academics at a Texas university conspired to exclude an American job-seeker from a tenured job, even to the point of labelling the Asian-American candidate as “white,” says a lawsuit by the Asian-American candidate named Sean Wang. The lawsuit described the alleged anti-American discrimination against Wang at Southern Methodist University: Since Hemang Desai (Indian-origin) became a full professor at SMU in 2006, its Accounting Department has had a systematic pattern of discrimination in tenure decisions. Among candidates of Indian descent who meet SMU’s stated productivity standard of at least four top-tier publications, 100% (2 of 2) were tenured: Neil Bhattacharya...

FHA loans to non-permanent residents quickly grew to represent 6% of mortgage issuances. The percentage was undoubtedly higher in places like the DFW area, where H-1B visa holders are disproportionately concentrated. I don’t have anything against people in America on H-1B visas. I’ve said it before—and I’ll say it again—that I’ve found many of them to be great people on an individual level, and I wish them all nothing but the best. Individual immigrants—especially those here legally—are not at fault for flawed US immigration policy. But this might be the most radicalizing thing I’ve ever seen. Not only are American...

The road to working and studying in the United States may soon become much tougher for thousands of skilled professionals and international students. The Trump administration is preparing a fresh set of immigration restrictions that could affect almost every major pathway used by foreign talent, from H-1B work visas to student work permits and even employment-based green cards. While several of the proposed rules are still under review, immigration lawyers, universities, and companies say the impact is already being felt. Employers are becoming more cautious, students are growing anxious and legal experts say visa scrutiny has dramatically increased. For Indian...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has identified more than 10,000 cases of potential fraud associated with a program that allows foreign students to extend their stay in the United States after graduating from college, ICE acting Director Todd Lyons told reporters Tuesday. At a press conference with officials from ICE and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Lyons outlined some of the findings of an agency investigation into fraud associated with the Optional Practical Training program. OPT allows foreign nationals who enter the United States on a student visa to work in the U.S. for 12, or in some cases 24, months....

The civic tech nonprofit Code for America is partnering with artificial intelligence company Anthropic to develop tools aimed at helping caseworkers enhance public benefits administration across the nation. The organizations are working together to develop an AI-enabled solution to improve the accuracy and timeliness of benefits service delivery under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Jana Rhyu, vice president of product at Code for America, announced Friday at a summit hosted by the organization in Chicago last week. The SNAP Policy Navigator tool is built on federal regulations, state manual selections, official policy directives and other documents to help caseworkers “quickly...

Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong informed employees in an early morning message Tuesday that the cryptocurrency exchange would eliminate roughly 14% of its workforce — about 700 jobs — as the company restructures around artificial intelligence. Armstrong shared the memo publicly on social media shortly before 7 a.m., telling staff the cuts were necessary as AI rapidly reshapes how work is done across the tech industry. The billionaire co-founder said impacted employees would receive additional details within the hour, though some workers later said their access to company systems had already been limited by the time the email landed. “I...

Today, Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) introduced the End H-1B Visa Abuse Act of 2026, which would pause the issuance of H-1B visas for three years and implement significant reforms when the program resumes. Reps. Brian Babin (R-TX), Brandon Gill (R-TX), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Wesley Hunt (R-TX), Tom McClintock (R-CA), Keith Self (R-TX), and Andy Ogles (R-TN) have signed on as original cosponsors. Following growing concern about companies turning to foreign labor instead of American workers, Rep. Crane drafted legislation to reset and reform the H-1B system. In addition to the three-year pause, the bill includes reforms such as: Reducing the...

Peter Thompson is co-founder and CEO of LucidLink, the cloud-native file streaming platform that enables instant, secure access to large files by streaming data on demand, allowing teams to access and edit complex filesets without downloading or syncing. I was 48 years old when I left my job and enrolled in the Entrepreneurial Studies program at Stanford. Most people at that stage of their careers are trying to reduce risk, not introduce it. They have steady income. They have dependents. In tech, the unspoken assumption is that if you were going to take a big swing, you should have done...

Retail giant Nike has announced a fresh wave of job cuts, slashing around 1,400 roles on Thursday in a move set to send shockwaves through its workforce. The latest layoffs - which are understood to fall heavily on its technology division - come as the sportswear behemoth pushes ahead with a major overhaul aimed at sharpening its competitive edge. Bosses insist the cuts form part of its aggressive 'Win Now' strategy, designed to streamline operations and position the company for future growth in an increasingly challenging retail landscape.

The open borders enthusiasts at the Cato Institute made a shocking discovery last week: The Trump administration has apparently cut legal immigration even more than it’s reduced illegal immigration. That seems incredible, considering there is virtually no new illegal immigration. But Cato’s immigration studies director David J. Bier believes this is the case, claiming illegal entries were already dramatically falling before Trump took office. “The falloff in illegal immigration continued a prior trend, while the cuts in legal immigration broke the trend of rising legal immigration from 2021 to 2024,” Bier claims, noting that “the cut to legal entries was...

Despite President Donald Trump winning on the promise of “mass deportations,” a handful of spineless Republicans, alongside Democrats, are trying to push a mass amnesty act known as the DIGNIDAD Act — or, for English speakers, the DIGNITY Act. The legislation is billed as not being amnesty, but would give millions of illegal aliens — both so-called DREAMers/DACA and non-DREAMers/DACA — a legal status. But co-sponsor Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., insists it’s not amnesty, so much so that she’s screaming at people on X to “READ. THE. BILL. BEFORE. YOU. OPEN. YOUR. MOUTH.” So I read the bill. And...

Hyderabad, India — The city of Hyderabad has been called the Silicon Valley of India. "Google, Facebook, and all the other bigger companies are here," Rajesh Jaknalli, who has worked for a U.S. tech company in Hyderabad for about 10 years, told CBS News. "This place is actually called High Tech City, but because of the many companies that we have, the term 'Cyberabad' has come," Jaknalli explained. Jaknalli says he has worked here with one goal, to get an opportunity to one day move to the U.S. "Our dream was to perform, give you 100%, and then probably, we'll...

As thousands of Oracle employees awoke on Tuesday to an email informing them they were being laid off, the workers likely didn’t know the tech company had been busy trying to hire foreign staff. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data, Oracle filed for roughly 3,126 petitions to employ H-1B workers in fiscal years 2025 and 2026. Employers must submit the paperwork when seeking to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations like technology. Some 436 of those petitions were filed this year alone. Amazon, which in January said it would axe 16,000 corporate employees, has filed for some 2,675...

Consultancies are increasingly marketing the O-1A visa to Indian professionals as a workaround to mounting H-1B barriers. A growing number of immigration firms and online platforms are pitching the O-1A visa as a viable alternative to the H-1B program, which has faced recent changes that critics say have injected new uncertainty into the high-skilled visa pipeline.

States are paying contractors such as Deloitte, Accenture, and Optum millions of dollars to help them comply with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — a law that will strip safety-net health and food benefits from millions. State governments rely on such companies to design and operate computer systems that assess whether low-income people qualify for Medicaid or food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as food stamps. Those state systems have a history of errors that can cut off benefits to eligible people, a KFF Health News investigation showed. These benefits, provided to the poorest...

🚨#BREAKING: #FBI Boston's Violent Crimes Task Force has arrested 10 Indian nationals across MA, KY, MO, & OH for allegedly participating in staged armed robberies for the purpose of allowing store clerks to claim they were "victims" of violent crime so they could apply for immigration benefits. An 11th Indian nat'l who was deported to India has also been charged. Learn more: ow.ly/qh9350Ytwzy

Republican candidate for governor in Ohio, Vivek Ramaswamy, trails Democrat Amy Acton by 10 points, a new poll from EMC Research, Inc., shows on Thursday. Newsweek reached out to political analysts via email for comment. Why It Matters Ohio has not elected a Democratic governor since 2006. Ramaswamy, a wealthy entrepreneur and former presidential candidate, comes with name recognition while Acton, a physician and former state health director, shows solid numbers with key groups in recent surveys. Ramaswamy, a supporter of President Donald Trump, was tapped to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency alongside Elon Musk in Trump's second term....