Different Worlds, Same Understandings and H-1B Arrests

Dear Friends,

A Chinese American friend of mine from Berkeley, California, the home of hippies and the ’60s free speech movement, was telling me and another friend from Mumbai India, the home of centuries old temples and Hindu monks, about a gift he gave his father. During the dot com boom, my Chinese-American friend had sold his on-line business and bought a new Lexus automobile for his Dad to say thanks for all of the support he had been given. His father was overjoyed and was about to call his older brother with the exciting news when he was stopped by his wife. At this point our Indian friend, who understood the cultural etiquette well though he was raised 8700 miles away, broke in and explained why the wife has stopped the phone call: if the father had called it would have been an embarrassment to his older brother – his son had never bought him a new car.

11 Arrested for H-1B Fraud
On February 12, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that they had arrested 11 people in 6 states who had been involved with bringing in H-1B workers for jobs that did not always exist or for giving them unauthorized jobs. There were approximately 8 Federal agencies and 7 state agencies involved in the investigation.