The Consulates in several posts just does not understand Immigration Law., especially the H-1B law. As it is, only 65,000 slots are opened every year, and over 100,000 applications are filed. So the lucky few who get in and get approved by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has to go to the Consulates.
The consulates, especially in Chennai, India tend to believe that small consultation firms cannot get H-1B applicants. So they ask for a laundry list of documents, including the employer's tax records, showing net profit, quarterly taxes, number of employees , etc. This is presumably to prove that the employer is actually doing business. Recently in an H-1B case, the Company was showing a net profit of over 200K. The consultants was to be paid $50k. At the time of filing the H-1B petition with the CIS, the employer had 45 employees. At the time of the consulate interview, the employer had 40 employee. The Chennai consulate denied the case and send it back to the CIS for "fraud investigation." This can take years!!!!
In another case in Sydney Australia, the Consulate officer asked whether the perspective employee knew the employer, and asked whether he knew if the employer is married. The employee knew the employer, but was not related. This case also got denied and sent to fraud investigation. Where does the H-1B regs say that the employee cannot know the employer? Would people like Michael Chertoff, Alberto Gonzales etc get a job if they did not know Pres Bush?
In this huge H-1B crisis, if the visas get denied, employers will simply outsource all work. If the H-1B workers were allowed to come in, the US would get the taxes, spending, etc. Now that will go to India or China. And yes, our debt to those countries will continue to increase.
In this labor day week end, if you know of a tiotally unfair consulate denial, please write. We can submit these stories to the Department of State.
1 comment:
Wonderful blog. The US Consulate in Bucharest, Romania is WAY out of control. I could write a book but I will try to summarize everything in one blog post! After paying $131 for an interview and $11 for a phone call and traveling half away across the country, staying in a hotel for a night, and standing on the sidewalk outside the embassy for nearly 2 hours, my colleague was given less then 2 minutes for an interview: "Where were you born? Where do you live now? Oh, you moved between Romanian cities, you're not stable...visa denied"
Contrast with Canadian Embassy which tells you exactly what documents to send via mail.
Result - 5 year tourist visa.
My colleague has stable US level employment, two homes, etc. but this was not taken into consideration. I personally approached the Consul, in the rain, as US citizen services is now outside the Embassy (they are on the inside behind a glass window, you are outside in uncovered space). He told me that he does not need to see any documents that my colleague has a house or a good salary - if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is... He told me everything is based on how the person conducting the interview 'feels'. He then told me that if this did not agree with me, I should renounce my US citizenship and he could help me !!
If all of this wasn't bad enough, I'll never forget the 80+ year old couple leaving the Embassy with tears in their eyes. They were denied visas to visit their son - a US citizen - who because of work can't take off and visit them - and they told me 'that's it, we probably never see him again in this world'
Something has to be done...certain Consul posts are out of control and it is destroying lives.
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