Indian-American diplomat claims majority H-1Bs fraudulent

Former US Congressman and economist Dave Brat and Indian-American diplomat Mahvash Siddiqui have alleged fraud in the H-1B visa programme, particularly at the Chennai consulate.

Siddiqui claimed 80 per cent to 90 per cent of Indian H-1B applications are fraudulent, while Brat said just the Chennai district received 2,20,000 visas, far above the US cap. These claims raise fresh questions on visa integrity amid the President Donald Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.

Speaking on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, Brat said the H-1B system had been “captured by industrial-scale fraud”, asserting that visa allocations from India had reached levels that defied statutory limits. “71 per cent of H-1B visas come from India, and only 12 per cent from China. That tells you something’s going on right there,” Brat said.

“There’s a cap of only 85,000 H-1B visas, yet somehow one district in India — the Madras (Chennai) district — got 2,20,000. That’s 2.5 times the cap Congress has set. So that’s the scam.” Brat went on to frame the issue as a direct threat to American workers. “When one of these folks comes over and claims they’re skilled — they’re not, that’s the fraud. They’re taking away your family’s job, your mortgage, your house, all of that,” he said.

According to reports, the US consulate in Chennai processed roughly 220,000 H-1B visas and an additional 140,000 H-4 dependent visas in 2024. The consulate handles applications from four major regions — Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Telangana — making it one of the busiest H-1B processing centres in the world.

The claims have resurfaced earlier allegations by Mahvash Siddiqui, an Indian-origin US Foreign Service Officer who served at the Chennai consulate nearly two decades ago. Siddiqui, in an interview, described the H-1B system as rife with forged documents, fabricated qualifications and proxy applicants.

She said she adjudicated at least 51,000 non-immigrant visas between 2005 and 2007, most of them H-1Bs. “80-90 per cent of the H-1B visas from India were fake — either fake degrees or forged documents, or applicants who were simply not highly skilled,” she said.