Hundreds of Indian and Chinese college-graduate migrants in the United States have been fired from white-collar jobs in California, Washington, DC, and elsewhere,
But the migrants are pushing back with lawyers, complaints in the Indian media, and pleas to Indian-origin members of Congress.
Some are losing their jobs at Apple and the Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as Fannie Mae.
More are losing jobs because the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has deleted their visas or their names from a federal database — dubbed SEVIS — that allows migrants to get work permits after enrolling in U.S. colleges. Their entries and work permits are being deleted from SEVIS because of their prior criminal activity — such as shoplifting, drunk driving, or street altercations — that was ignored by President Joe Biden’s pro-migration deputies.
In March, Citigroup announced it would sharply reduce its reliance on foreign contractors after the contractors cost the bank at least $600 million in routine operations and regulatory incompetence. The decision means Citibank will begin hiring at least 10,000 American technology professionals for jobs held by supposedly cheaper Indian workers.
All this is good news for the many American professionals who have lost jobs to the federal government’s mass inflow of mixed-skill Indian graduates. Most of the Indian migrants use their H-1B visas or university-related work permits to take roughly 1 million jobs that would otherwise go to skilled American professionals. Many of the migrants are hired for Fortune 500 jobs by ethnic networks that discriminate against Americans.
Many American white-collar workers hope President Donald Trump’s deputies will recognize the huge damage done by legalized white-collar migration — partly because Trump launched major reforms in 2020. His reforms were quickly wrecked by President Joe Biden’s pro-migration deputies.
“There are reasons to be optimistic about the administration … but it’s going to take time,” Kevin Lynn, founder of US Tech Workers, told Breitbart News. “This time to be very aggressive” to demand that politicians constrict the multiple visa-worker programs that slash Americans’ salaries, shrink professional power against teh C-Suite, and stall innovation, Lynn said.
But ethnic Indian politicians and ethnic associations are already pushing for the federal government jobs to be given back to the fired Indian visa workers.
“It has been brought to my attention that Fannie Mae has accused hundreds of my constituents in the Indian-American community of fraudulent behavior and fired them without conducting a full investigation or providing evidence,” said an April 9 letter from Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA), Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), and Indian-born Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI). “We also request a briefing for ourselves and our staff at your earliest convenience,” the letter said.
Subramanyam’s district voted for Kamala Harris over Trump by 53 percent to 44 percent.
Fannie Mae has released little information about the nature and scale of the alleged fraud. “We fired over 100 employees from Fannie Mae who we caught engaging in unethical conduct, including facilitating fraud, against our great company,” said an April 4 statement from William Pulte, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fannie Mae.
The scandal has been closely followed by the Indian press, which notes that most of the Indians in the Fannie Mae firing were from the ethnic Telugus from the distinct province of Telangana.
The Times of India reported on April 16:
Some employees are alleged to have colluded with non-profit organizations like the Telugu Association of North America (TANA) and misused company funds. Incidentally, this is the same scam that saw the Cupertino-based company’s firing some Indian-origin employees earlier this year. One of the employees who was laid off at Fannie Mae reportedly held the position of regional vice president in TANA. Sources told Time that TANA is not alone in the scam, and other organizations are also likely involved.
India Today reported on April 16:
Several employees are accused of colluding with the Telugu Association of North America (TANA) to deceive companies and misuse funds, according to The Times of India report.
One of the employees laid off on Thursday reportedly held the position of regional vice president at TANA, while another is the spouse of a former president of the American Telugu Association (ATA).
Sources said TANA is not the only organisation involved and other associations were also under investigation.
TANA is helping to organize lawyers for Telugu Indians facing the loss of their SEVIS data.
In the Apple firings, India Today described the alleged fraud in a January 8 article about the mass firings:
The reported scheme revolves around Apple’s Matching Grants program, a corporate social responsibility initiative designed to amplify employees’ charitable contributions by matching their donations to nonprofit organisations. The allegations suggest that some employees, in collaboration with specific nonprofit organisations — including associations reportedly linked to the Indian community — falsified donations to exploit the program.
The District Attorney’s office in Santa Clara described the charges against several Chinese-origin people who were hired for jobs at Apple:
Over three years, the six tech employees defrauded both the State of California and Apple’s Matching Gifts Program. Under the direction of Siu Kei (Alex) Kwan, five defendants all pretended to make donations to the American Chinese International Cultural Exchange (ACICE) or Hop4Kids. In fact, they were given the donations back and Kwan – the CEO of Hop4Kids and accountant for ACICE – kept Apple’s matching funds. Meanwhile, all the donators wrote off their “charitable donations” on their tax returns.
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By exploiting Apple’s employee gift-matching program, the defendants extracted approximately $152,000 from Apple’s program and overreported around $100,000 in charitable contributions as tax deductions.
Many Indians are losing jobs because the Department of Homeland Security is removing migrants’ names from the SEVIS database needed for work permits. The revocations have mostly been stalled by more than 28 lawsuits on behalf of more than 1,500 migrants from many countries.
This population includes Indians who got work permits via the Curricular Practical Training (CPT) program or the Occupational Practical Training (OPT) program. In 2023, almost 450,000 migrants held work permits after paying tuition to a wide variety of colleges. The colleges range from low-quality colleges with minimal coursework to better-quality classes in elite Ivy League universities.
“These sudden revocations have left many students in shock, facing the grim reality of deportation and the invalidation of their legal stay, Form I-20, and Employment Authorization Documents (EAD),” said GG2.net, a news site based in Gujarat province. The article continued:
Among the impacted students is a Hyderabad native currently studying in Omaha, who revealed he was fined two years ago for speeding in New York but was never arrested. Another student admitted to a DUI (driving under the influence) charge, saying he had followed all court mandates, including installing a car ignition lock and undergoing sobriety checks.
In a more severe case, a Texas-based student was arrested for shoplifting $144 worth of items from Walmart. However, the case was dismissed due to his clean academic record and cooperation. “I followed all legal instructions and thought the matter was behind me. Why am I being punished again?” he asked.
The administration is defending its actions amid a flurry of lawsuits from students, employer groups, and pro-migration groups.
Border agents may also be enforcing anti-fraud rules to block the airport arrival of white-collar migrants, many of whom face huge hometown pressure to find jobs in the United States
There is also some initial evidence that President Donald Trump’s deputies want to do something about routine anti-American discrimination by Indian companies in the United States. According to Bloomberg:
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is investigating dozens of American workers’ allegations that India’s biggest IT outsourcer, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., discriminated against them based on their race, age and national origin.
The former employees are largely professionals from non-South Asian ethnic backgrounds over the age of 40, who say the company targeted them for layoffs but spared Indian colleagues, some of whom were working on H-1B skilled worker visas. They began filing complaints against TCS in late 2023.
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The EEOC is tasked with enforcing laws prohibiting discrimination in the workplace. In 2020, its investigation of another of the world’s biggest outsourcing firms, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., found that the company discriminated against non-Indian workers in its US operation. A jury in a federal class-action lawsuit found in October that Cognizant intentionally discriminated against more than 2,000 non-Indian employees between 2013 and 2022, echoing the EEOC findings. Cognizant said it provides equal employment opportunities for all employees and does not tolerate discrimination. It has said it plans to appeal the verdict and disagrees with the EEOC finding.
Mid-level officials may also be penalizing commonplace fraud in corporate requests for visa workers. Forbes.com reported on April 21:
When filing petitions for H-1B visas and I-140s for employment-based green cards, attorneys have received Requests for Evidence referencing “potentially adverse information.” The RFEs ask for the beneficiary’s residential address so USCIS can collect their biometric information.
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Companies and immigration attorneys are in a “wait and see” mode, unsure if these unusual Requests for Evidence foreshadow new restrictive measures. “It is too early to know,” said Kevin Miner. “These only began a week or two ago, so we haven’t seen these progress far enough to understand the purpose of the requests.”
The U.S. government is also cracking down on phone scams run from India. In Ohio, a judge sentenced Indian national Pratik Patel to 90 months in prison for his role in a phone scam operation that targeted older Americans, according to the Dayton Daily News:
Patel was based in Chicago and traveled to Fairborn, California, Maryland, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia to collect and try to collect money from victims …. Patel told investigators he did seven pick ups and was paid $500 to $1,500 for each one, according to court records. He claimed his visa was scheduled to expire on Feb. 17, 2024, and needed the money to fly his family back to India.
The government has sentenced Indians in prior plots, but has also allowed the telephone scam business to grow rapidly, partly because it has encouraged U.S. companies to allow Indian outsourcing firms to have ready access to private data about U.S. citizens. The scammers also target Indians living in the United States.
