A former United States Congressman and economist, Dr Dave Brat, has alleged large-scale fraud in the H-1B visa programme, claiming that one Indian consular district, Chennai, accounted for more than double the annual statutory cap for the visa category.
According to reports, the US Consulate in Chennai processed approximately 2,20,000 H-1B visas and 1,40,000 H-4 dependent visas in 2024. The consulate serves applicants from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Telangana, making it one of the busiest H-1B processing centres globally.
“That is the Scam”: Brat’s explosive charge
His remarks, made on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, come at a time when the Donald Trump administration is escalating its scrutiny of skilled-worker visas.
Dr Brat argued that the programme had been “captured by industrial-scale fraud”, pointing to the disproportionate share of applicants from India.
“Seventy-one per cent of H-1B visas come from India and only 12 per cent from China. That tells you something right there,” he said. “There is a cap of only 85,000 H-1B visas, yet one district in India, the Madras (Chennai) district received 220,000. That is two-and-a-half times the cap set by Congress. That is the scam.”
Linking the issue to employment in the United States, Brat claimed that misuse of the programme posed a threat to American workers. “When I say H-1B visa, you need to think of your cousins, your aunts and uncles, your grandparents. One of these folks comes over and claims they are skilled; they are not, that’s the fraud,” he alleged.
“They just took away your family’s job and your mortgage.”
Echoes from a Former US Diplomat at Chennai Consulate
Brat’s claims echo earlier allegations by Mahvash Siddiqui, an Indian-origin US Foreign Service officer who served at the Chennai consulate nearly two decades ago.
Siddiqui, who served at the post between 2005 and 2007, recounted her experience at what was then one of the world’s largest H-1B processing centres.
She alleged that 80–90% of visas issued to Indians, mainly H-1Bs, involved fraudulent documentation, including fabricated educational credentials or applicants who did not meet the requirements for highly skilled employment.
“As an Indian-American, I hate to say this, but fraud and bribery are normalised in India,” she said.
She also alleged that some applicants attempted to avoid interviews by American officers, that proxy candidates sometimes appeared in place of genuine applicants, and that certain hiring managers in India demanded money in exchange for job offers used to support visa applications.