H-1B visa fraud normalized in India: Indian-American diplomat

Siddiqui said, “Visa fraud is normalized in India,” estimating that 80–90 percent of the cases she reviewed involved forged documents, fabricated degrees, or unqualified applicants.

Indian-American Foreign Service officer Mahvash Siddiqui / Courtesy: @sciencediplomat via ‘X’

An Indian-American Foreign Service officer has alleged that systemic fraud in India has compromised the H-1B visa program for almost twenty years, asserting that the issue remains unresolved despite repeated escalation to Washington.

Speaking on Nov. 20 in a personal capacity on the Center for Immigration Studies’ “Parsing Immigration Policy” podcast in conversation with the host Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, Mahvash Siddiqui said she documented “industrialized fraud” while adjudicating more than 51,000 H-1B applications at the U.S. Consulate in Chennai between 2005 and 2007.

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“Visa fraud is normalized in India,” said Siddiqui, who was part of a small task force to curb visa fraud at the embassy. She highlighted that 80–90 percent of the cases she reviewed involved forged documents, fabricated degrees, or unqualified applicants.

She cited proxy interviews, falsified certificates, and a document-forgery pipeline in Hyderabad’s Ameerpet district. On the U.S. side, she also described kickback systems in U.S.-based teams, which were usually Indian-heavy managers that directed jobs to specific candidates.

The Chennai consulate has remained a high-volume hub. In fiscal year 2024, it processed roughly 220,000 H-1B visas and 140,000 H-4 dependent visas, more than any other post worldwide.

Siddiqui said that efforts by her task force to run targeted anti-fraud checks were shut down after being labeled a “rogue operation,” due to political pressure from the top. “
It was so systemic. It was very hard for our little task force of, you know, 15 or so Foreign Service officers to basically speak truth to power.”

A new CIS report released alongside the interview, “‘Industrialized’ Fraud in the H-1B Visa Program,” argues that the abuses Siddiqui described remain pervasive. The report states, “The H-1B invasion threatens American jobs, security, and prosperity,” asserting that fraud enables outsourcing firms to replace U.S. STEM graduates with lower-wage foreign workers.

Siddiqui said the program no longer meets its original goal of addressing genuine skill shortages, adding that it “contributes to bypassing local talent” and calling the notion of a persistent American STEM shortage a “myth.”

“I'm from Southern California, and I've seen how these very smart students came out of the University of California system, a very robust STEM education, and yet they have been displaced by these IT workers from India,” she asserted.

As Congress and the incoming administration prepare to reassess H-1B rules amid tech-sector layoffs and rising unemployment among STEM graduates, Siddiqui’s account—nearly two decades after her Chennai posting—adds urgency to calls for major reform or a full structural overhaul of the program.

Comments

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Sam Patel

2025-11-25 00:00:00

First: There is no H1-B invasion. No more VISAs can be granted than jobs offered by AMERICAN companies.
Second: This is a American problem that can easily be solved.

But we do have a "siddiqui invasion" in India.

1) Double the cost of H1B VISA application and make the person applying for the VISA pay, which the company can only legally reimburse after 6 months on the job
2) The $100K fee for a H1B does not go far enough. The company hiring an H1B should issue a scholarship to American Citizens to a state college to cover tuitions in the field of the study that they have brought in a candidate for; for the entire duration of the VISA holder plus five years if the VISA holder changes to a permanent citizenship
3) Define VISA term as 2 years, renewable in the country of origin at year 4, 8, 12 and 16.
4) Restrict this VISA holder to only bring in spouse and children (and do the same for permanent residents and all other VISA holders
5) Make it illegal punishable by 5 years and confiscation of property and deportation if the applicant provides false information especially false degrees and identity and birth certificate or any other forged documents.

Let us see them return in chains and diapers and shorts with bottoms and T-shirt with print "US jail".