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USIBC, USISPF organise reception for Eric Garcetti
USIBC President Atul Keshap congratulated Garcetti and wished him a safe journey to India.
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Madhu Balaji - Sat, 01, Apr 2023
- 16:31 EDT
- 616
The US-India Business Council (USIBC) and the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) greeted the new US Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, at a welcome reception hosted in Washington.
Wishing Garcetti a safe trip to India, USIBC President Atul Keshap expressed excitement to continue working with US Embassy in India under his leadership. During the event, the business community conveyed to the new ambassador the need for the private sector's strong support for the growth of the US-India economic relationship.
"As the world’s fifth largest economy, India is among the most important markets on earth. US.-India trade and investment will be central to driving the next phase of global growth and forging resilience across key supply chains," USIBC press statement said.
USIBC President @USAmbKeshap congratulated the new U.S. Ambassador to India @ericgarcetti at a welcome reception hosted at @USChamber yesterday. He wished him a safe journey to India and expressed his excitement to continue working with @USandIndia under his leadership. pic.twitter.com/U2OBkWMqhv
— U.S.-India Business Council (@USIBC) March 31, 2023
"A pleasure to host the incoming US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti for an industry interaction. Wishing Ambassador Garcetti all the best for New Delhi," USISPF shared on social media with glimpses from the industry interaction they organized.
A pleasure to host the incoming US Ambassador to India @ericgarcetti for an industry interaction. Wishing Amb. Garcetti all the best for New Delhi ???? pic.twitter.com/oMKydV21HJ
— US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (@USISPForum) March 30, 2023
The councils earlier congratulated the former mayor of Los Angeles on his confirmation as the next envoy to India. Garcetti's appointment was confirmed by the US Senate by a vote of 52-42
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.
Also Read: Rising visa fees put immigrant doctors at risk, scholar warns
“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.
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