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The dice is loaded against Indian H1-B visa holders

April 29, 2009

Now that the US government has tightened, screws on H1-B visa holders through TARP rules, its time to once again raise demand for repatriation of their social security deductions even if India does not have a bilateral treaty with the US on this.

It is a tad sad that the dice on the issue of social security deductions continues to be so heavily loaded against the India H1-B visa holders at the moment. They pay taxes but draw no social security retirement benefits in the US or even on there return in India. A totalization agreement with the Indian government as mooted at Doha meeting has still not materialized.

H1-B visa holders, it needs to be mentioned can work in the US for a maximum of six years, whereas to draw social security benefits from their US account, a worker has to out in a minimum of 10 years in the US. The only exemption is for workers who have been paying into their country’s Social Security system, however India still does not have such a system in place.

Meanwhile, the US at the moment has totalitarian agreements only with workers from 21 countries and talks are underway with a few others, including India. No one knows how long US social security money is going be available, but at present Indians working in H1-B are not eligible to get the social security benefits.

Several H1B visa holders are already laid off and may not even come back to US. What will happen to their social security contributions?

Why the media is only reporting H1-B workers taking away the jobs from US workers?

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Written by Radhika · Filed Under BPO Blogs 

Comments

12 Responses to “The dice is loaded against Indian H1-B visa holders”

  1. US Citizen on April 30th, 2009 6:24 am

    Why are you crying that H1 visa holders are not getting their social benefits? Why don’t you go back to India and work?

  2. Citizen? on May 22nd, 2009 5:19 am

    Why US is giving H1 visas in first place? Why don’t they stop them? They need the talent and that is the reason they give H1. If they give H1 and collect social security benefits they better pay them back.

  3. truthspeaks on August 29th, 2009 10:27 pm

    most of the guys who come in h1 are not so called talent..like half of the employees of all ur outsourcing comapnies…even big outsourcing companies..they are just software coolies…used by these companies for exploitation……They are exploited..but they are very happy..u go to usa..and spoil
    the full market..now ur it companies are targetting europe..but europe wil be a bit difficult market to crack..

  4. Radhika on August 30th, 2009 10:56 pm

    You forget, its a free market, isn’t it? So let the buyer and the supllier of a service decide whether they have a match; whether the person being hired is talented or not and at what price point. How can you make a general, sweeping comment, like “they are not talented..”

  5. Rizwan on September 4th, 2009 10:58 am

    You call it coolies or whatever. Expatriate workers are a happening not only in US, there are expatriates everywhere and there are US expatriates in other countries. Doesn’t want to make a foolish argument that why don’t all US expatriates else where go back to US to find job – like someone here arguing about H1b workers in US. Remember, it is US and US companies advertise immigration to US as a gold spot. None of us jumped across border. If these are not talented, where are all above of all talents in US? why couldn’t they be replaced? So this argument doesn’t hold strong as well. Reality is these folks here on H1b are stinking working for their money as anybody else and they are trading best of their life and time in US make their life better. I am sure we are not running sweat-shops in US. If they have worked for the money and sure do have rights to their money. They are not asking for something they didn’t earn, right?

  6. Tired of Indians on September 8th, 2009 9:50 pm

    Who cares! If you are not a citizen shut the hell up. You come to the US to work at your own will. Don’t cry about not having rights when it was your choice knowing full well that you are not a citizen. Tax deductions and social security are things that you have to deal with working in America. You think I will see any of the social security benefits when I retire? Unlikely, I’m a citizen but I don’t go around crying about it. I don’t have a dependency on social security and most Americans of my generation don’t either. I honestly find Indian engineers and programmers overrated and useless workers who just come to the US to reap the rewards of a higher salary yet they contribute absolutely zero productivity. Instead of being an asset most I’ve dealt with are a hindrance with a huge ego problem. I don’t buy the argument that we lack engineers when we have some of the best universities in the world. There are a lot of talent in China and other parts of the world why only India? It’s utter crap and just another example of Corporate America cutting corners so executives can lavishly pad their lifestyle. I can keep going on about this but bottomline is if you don’t like it don’t come and work in the States. I hate it when people come to another country and complain about things they have no say in it’s just life. Deal with it don’t treat this like some sort of injustice to humanity.

  7. Radhika on September 10th, 2009 1:20 am

    Hey! You really sound like someone who is xenophobic about Indians. Such sweeping generalisations — only an Amerian can be so “juvenile” :) (Pardon my use of a ‘dumb American’ metaphor). Everybody in America is an immigrant. And we are not talking about doles here — we are talking of legitimate rights as workers!!!

  8. Indian on September 19th, 2009 4:22 pm

    GE , AIG, ,Besy Buy and so many….its started only……God Save America.

    A developed nation that depend on China and Japan for all…….

  9. Truely Indian on October 1st, 2009 11:40 pm

    FYI to those who aren’t aware of this:

    Once upon a time India was called “Golden Bird”, the english came as “East Indian Company” to do Business in India and got impressed with the prosperity and indian hospitality. They set up their shops in India and started selling goods from Britain and other European Nations. Once they built confidence with kings they started showing their true color and started Looting and exploiting India for 300 years and that is how once a prosper India was left as a poor nation at the time of Independence in 1947.

    I see the similar thing happenning now but sides have been switched, Indians are now in this position to travel to any country in the world and can impress any country with their IT Wizards, and the money which has been looted once by the Western Nations will be brought back as Remittance (reply for East India Company is Indian IT Companies). As 17th and 18th Century was known for West Dominance, then 21st will be for East.

    As far as Social Security is concerned we are not beggers, but definitely will not throw away money just like that due to some shitty law. But if you wants to live on that change amount and want to fight for it, then you know what “Keep the Change” because we indians believe in non-violence.

    We Indians are committed to do so .. If you have will then try to stop us.

    Any country at this time is dependent on 2 Countries only .. India and China. Both as the consumer of their goods and as the supplier. So Don’t try to mess with either of these otherwise dooms day will arrive early.

    Cheers ..

    Oh yeah one more thing .. If you are offended by this post .. then you know what “I DONT CARE”

    Vande Maatram (Pray to the MotherLand)

  10. strayer on October 17th, 2009 7:50 pm

    I’d like to see a mass deportation on H1bs from the US.. Let’s do this before they
    before citizens..which is what they are dying to do.

    Now here is the trick they follow: (its a dirty trick at that)

    They come over here and the first thing they do is have a kid.
    Well the kid is a citizen of this country.. so the kid can’t be asked to leave..
    So.. this automatically gives their H1b parents the status to stay in this
    country till the kid is 18.. (neat trick huh?)

    Isn’t this the ultimate strategy?

    In a very few, very few cases the family will actually fold and go back.. but
    the kid can return for higher education. (the story never ends!)

    By the way, if any of you want to go to Niagara falls.. don’t bother.

    At any given time, the crowd there is 90% East Indian..
    There are full of the moms and pops or rather grandparents of the H1bs and their children.

  11. Immigration1 on October 31st, 2009 7:37 am

    One of the reasons is local employees is not getting jobs because of foreign employees.

  12. Singh on February 14th, 2010 3:11 pm

    h1b contribute 1 billion toward SS benefits / year. I will be defintely greedy to exploit them. Take their services and kick them back.

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