Congress leader Kandi Srinivasa Reddy embroiled in major US H1B visa scam
The report details how Srinivasa Reddy orchestrated the scheme flagged by the US, with his companies collaborating to exploit the lottery and secure over 300 H-1B visas since 2020.
Hyderabad: The Congress is facing major embarrassment after its Adilabad constituency in-charge and candidate from Adilabad in the last Assembly elections, Kandi Srinivasa Reddy, found himself embroiled in a massive US H1B visa scam. Business news major Bloomberg has published an investigative report on how Srinivas Reddy and his firms in the US were involved in lotteries to win H1B visas for employees to work in the US, and how his firms were renting workers to US firms through a scheme flagged by the US government.
The report also states how Srinivasa Reddy was behind the scheme flagged by the US and how his companies worked in concert to game the lottery, winning more than 300 H-1Bs since 2020.
“As his H-1B business surged, Reddy appears to have prospered. He set up a foundation to help farmers near his hometown back in India and started his own TV and online news operation there. He jumped into local politics, becoming an aide to the chief minister of the state of Telangana. Last year, he ran for a legislative seat, presenting himself to voters as a man of humble roots who’d become a successful entrepreneur in the States. He lost,” the Bloomberg report says.
The report is based on the annual April lottery conducted by the US government to draw lots for a limited number of skilled-worker visas, the H-1Bs.
“Tech giants, startups, banks and drugmakers all vie for slots, hoping to snap up international graduates of top US universities who must otherwise leave the country. Most don’t get picked. The game, it turns out, is rigged,” Bloomberg says, quoting federal data on how thousands of companies got an unfair advantage by helping themselves to extra lottery tickets.
The report lists out figures revealing how companies that farm out IT workers exploit flaws in the visa lottery while other US businesses and talented immigrants lose out, with Srinivas Reddy’s firm being one of these companies exploiting the flaws in the system.
According to the Bloomberg investigation, Srinivasa Reddy had created his own small company “with a grand ambition to become the Amazon of Staffing.”
“A self-described “common farmer’s child” from a cotton-growing region in India, Reddy had earned a master’s degree in the US and worked as a tech consultant, eventually settling near Dallas. In 2013, he started his own outfit called Cloud Big Data Technologies LLC. Much of his firm’s strategy involved working the US immigration system. Cloud Big Data would look for tech workers who needed an H-1B to remain in or move to the US, offering recruiters up to $8,000 a head, according to online ads. After winning an H-1B, Reddy’s company would rent the workers on contract to corporations such as Meta Platforms Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc., visa applications show. The company said in its online advertisements that it collected 20% or 30% of the worker’s pay, an amount that could reach $15,000 or more each year for a typical worker,” the report says.
A report published by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) last year describes a scheme, involving a group of 13 related companies that worked in concert to exploit the law. The report doesn’t name the companies, but by matching the report’s details to the visa data, Bloomberg News was able to link them all to Srinivasa Reddy. Cloud Big Data, for instance, was identified in the report as “Company B.” Neither USCIS nor Reddy’s representatives would confirm or deny the connections, says Bloomberg.
“In the 2020 lottery, Reddy’s Cloud Big Data submitted the names of some 288 employees. At the same time, a dozen other companies Reddy controlled — companies with similar-sounding names, similar-looking websites, and overlapping mailing addresses — submitted many of the same workers’ names, USCIS officials determined. In all, his companies entered the lottery more than 3,000 times,” the report says.
Federal data show that companies that played by the rules in 2020 got fewer than half the H-1Bs they sought while Reddy’s candidates were virtually assured lottery wins. When it came time to submit a visa application, however, most of them didn’t follow through. Even so, his companies got a total of 54 visas, far more than any previous year. They’ve scored more than 300 since 2020, the report states.
“In a brief phone interview, Reddy said he is merely a registered agent for the companies and has little involvement in them. That’s not what he’s said elsewhere. He’s told Texas authorities he’s the chief executive officer of Cloud Big Data, and an affidavit filed with election officials in India and business registry documents in the US show that he or his wife own or control all of them. In social media and promotional material supporting a run for public office in India last year, he identified himself as the founder and CEO of a group of staffing companies and took credit for employing hundreds of people,” Bloomberg says.
Meanwhile, Srinivasa Reddy, when contacted by Telangana Today, dismissed anything illegal on his part and said someone from within the Congress was trying to malign him.
“Some expelled leader of the Congress from Adilabad, who is unable to digest my growth in the party, is trying to tarnish my image by making a controversy around 302 H-1B VIsas issued legally by the USA government through the draw of lots to my companies in five years. Our group of companies have a good reputation and bonding with the USA,” Kandi Srinivas Reddy told Telangana Today.
The US government appreciated us for withdrawing the unused 247 H-1B Visas out of 302 allotted from 2020 to 2024. It advised us to apply for the Visas for the needs of business of our group of companies in future if required., he said.
Here is the full version of the Bloomberg report:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-staffing-firms-game-h1b-visa-lottery-system/
