Watch Those H1B Hires, FBI Tells American Firms

H1B aspirants in the US could face stringent background checks if you go by the latest advisory by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) for employers.

The FBI has laid out specific scenarios on its website for employers to check for possible 'spies' in their organisations.

It has listed 'students and educators' as one of the favourite 'cover-ups' used by agents. That's not all. The FBI, in its website, has put up a list of 'collection strategies' that agents use to get their hands on US technology.

Here's a sample:

'You hire a foreign-born engineer who has been educated in this country. Over a 10-15 year period, she rises to mid-level management. Then, she returns to her home country - where she gets paid by that government to set up a business that competes with yours.'

Indian students and teachers in the US have termed it as discriminatory.

'An F1 is a non-immigrant visa. A student applying for an F1 visa at a US consulate is expected to return to his country and not stay back. If he even hints at staying back permanently, the consular officer rejects the visa application summarily.

'So the US government fully expects that these highly skilled, educated, trained people will one day return to their homeland to share that knowledge. Add to that the state of immigration laws in this country that discourage skilled people from migrating here in any case.

'H1B's have now become a lottery, and the average wait time for an MS to get a green card is 6-12 years. So why does the fact of people returning to their home countries, come as a shock to FBI?' asks Kaushik Biswas, a student.

Sample another interesting collection strategy on the FBI website.

A series of university students and professors from overseas take jobs in research labs on campus and get involved in related military projects. Individually, they learn only bits and pieces. But collectively, when they pass that information back to their home country, it paints a telling picture of US defence initiatives.

That's not all. The agency is willing to help by offering a training programme to spot these collectives, or sleeper cells placed in the US.

Called the Counter Intelligence Domain programme, the agency has been meeting university professors, students and staff and has been offering them solutions for dealing with potential terrorist threats on campus.

Last month, agents from the FBI met officials of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and other top research universities in New England to discuss the new 'security' initiative.

WPI president Dennis Berkey said the meeting was about taking precautions to protect sensitive research and 'how to be more aware of folks around you, how to take certain precautions with your information in your data.

'Businesses and institutes already know how to protect themselves without FBI help. As for the lady 'who returns to her home country', isn't it a touch paranoid to model Asian-born R&D executives as spies just because their home-country governments have decided to engage in venture-capitalism?' asks Camille, a researcher who is employed in an American firm.

Pay middleman and get student visa for US!

You no longer have to be a student to get a student visa for the US. These visas are the latest tools in the hands of middlemen looking to send you to the US for work. Nine students were recently nabbed in Delhi for faking their qualifications to get this visa, reports CNBC-TV18.

Close to 25,000 US student visas were issued to Indians last year. However, not all of them went there to study. A large number of student visa recipients used these visas to fraudulently get in to the US and took up jobs after landing there. Middlemen are exploiting student visas to send candidates interested to work in the US for a hefty sum.

The US consulate confirmed the abuse of student visas. Nine students were arrested in Delhi last month for applying for student visas using fraud certificates. The university that had issued them necessary documents is also under scrutiny.

Consular Section Mumbai Chief US Consulate Glen Keiser says, “This university is under the great danger of losing its power to accept foreign students. We are investigating four more universities that are suspects.”

Student visas do not have any quota like H1B or temporary work visas. These visas are issued throughout the year. Once the term for student visa expires, most of these fake students get absorbed in the illegal immigrant pool of the country.

US Consul-General cautions visa applicants

Hyderabad: David Hopper, Consul-General, US Consulate, Chennai, on Wednesday cautioned visa applicants against seeking the help of touts, brokers or agents as any false information would render them permanently ineligible to get a visa.

In a brief chat with reporters after attending the inaugural of a new offshore facility of Vensoft company here, he expressed concern at the increasing number of fake documents received by the Chennai Consulate. He said most of the fake documents, when traced back, were from Andhra Pradesh.

He said such documents from AP ran into hundreds and one agent from the State was found to have sent 400 packages of fraudulent documents. People sent through him would not get their visas. Such people were getting cheated by document vendors, he said.

Urging visa applicants to provide accurate and genuine information, Mr. Hopper said measures taken to reduce the waiting time from five to six months to two or three weeks was also being misinterpreted by some as having easier access to visa.

He pointed out that the visa standards had not changed but the process had been made more efficient.He said the US Consulate would be opened in the city next year for delivering better services.

Union Minister of State for Defence M. M. Pallam Raju said that a $ 10 billion opportunity could be tapped as the offset policy for purchase of defence products of more than Rs.300 crores had stipulated that 30 per cent of it should be sourced from India. He urged Indian companies to take advantage of it and also develop qualitative IT programmes for the domestic market. Transport Minister Kanna Laxminarayana was also present.