B1 Visa – A Perfect IT Slave from overseas at the cheapest price

• Conduct Negotiations
• Solicit sales or investment
• Discuss planned investment or purchases.
• Make investments or purchases
• Attend Meetings, and participate in them fully.
• Interview and hire staff.
• Conduct research.

The following activities require a working visa, and may not be carried out by business visitors:

• Running a business.
• Gainful employment.
• Payment by an organization within the US.
• Participating as a professional in entertainment or sporting events.

In reality, Employees of Indian IT companies will work and earn money (so called stipend) in USA on this short term visa viz. Business Visa. Read the following case study and you will understand the typical modus operand and legal abuse of Business Visa in USA.

The company and employee names discussed in this article are fictitious!

An Indian company let us call it Dnfosys is working on some big data warehousing contract for USA based company called HenWorth.

HenWorth, USA needs an expert person on data warehousing for a few months in USA. If HenWorth obtain such expert person from local labor(IT) market the typical American wage in data warehousing area would be $55 to $100 per hour resulting in approximately $600 to $800 a day using 8 hours a day formula.

HenWorth wants to save money by all means.
So HenWorth USA requests Dnfosys India to supply a temporary manpower.
Now Dnfosys India has only the following option.
Send a Dnfosys India’s data warehousing expert on L1 visa. But for L1 visa there is a petition filing procedure etc. And HenWorth USA needs someone immediately( from India), so it is not an option at this moment. The best way for HenWorth is to have the required personnel expert sent to USA by Dnfosys from India on B1 Visa. HenWorth and Dnfosys does extensive paperwork if needed to bring this datwarehousing person (let us call him Nishit) to USA on a business visa.

Nishit gets B1 visa stamping at US Consulate in Indiavery easily and goes to USA to help HenWorth on data warehousing project.

Let us examine, how this venture of getting an expert on business visa from USA works in favor of both the company ( HenWorth and Dnfosys)

Just by having Nishit ( an overseas manpower) working , HenWorth is saving minimum $15 thousand or more by skipping the local labor market and getting a similar talent from overseas.

Wait a moment, you just read that while visiting USA on visitor visa, a person ( here Nishit) cannot accept a gainful employment or accept the payment by a company within USA. And in fact that’s the law. But HenWorth really needs Nishit’s data warehousing expertise. So Dnfosys’s game of accounting comes in to play. Here is how Nishit violates B1 Visa rules but if we go by books he has not violated any rules.

• Dnfosys’s overseas office takes care of Nishit’s stay.
• Nishit will be paid total $40 stipend per day by Dnfosys. Dnfosys pays this $40 per day cost in form of letting Nishit use the Dnfosys Credit Card or by cash or direct addition to his salary account in India.
• Since Nishit is on Dnfosys – Pune’s payroll and earns regular salary, Dnfosys will continue to pay Nishit’s regular salary in India during while Nishit works at HenWorth.

What Nishit does at HenWorth?

• Nishit almost acts like a regular contract employee at HenWorth. HenWorth even made a temporary badge for him so that he can get in and out of HenWorth at any time.
• Nishit has a cubicle to seat and a temporary phone line to use at HenWorth
• During late night hours, Nishit also coordinates with the staff in India.

What are the advantages for HenWorth?

• HenWorth does not need to pay benefits such as 401K plan, health benefits and paid vacation days to Nishit.
• If HenWorth would have hired such manpower from typical labor market, the hourly rate would be around $55 to $100 per day resulting in from $400 to $800 worth of cost per day. Monthly cost of such manpower would be: $8000.00 to $16000 per month and such manpower will easily demand extra money for working overtime or coordinating with overseas Indian staff for unusual amount of late night hours. And HenWorth wants to save money by all means, and at the same time HenWorth wants best and brightest person to work on this data warehousing project. Dnfosys comes to rescue HenWorth.

What are advantages for Dnfosys?

• Don’t forget that Dnfosys is not running a charity. Dnfosys provides the service in a very cost effective way to HenWorth.
• Dnfosys enters in to a fixed rate contract with HenWorth. Such as, no matter how many hours you utilize for Nishit, pay Dnfosys $5000 a month or Nishit will work at HenWorth at $30 per hour (monthly cost would be $4800 a month in this case). And HenWorth will not pay anything directly to Nishit for providing such IT services.

Nishit doesn’t see following facts.

• He has been paid just $4400 (4 months stipend) and another $4400 (regular salary in Indian Rupees for 4 months) making it total: $8800. $8800/4 = $2200 per month. Nishit then converts it in to Indian currency, and sounds a really good saving per month. Nishit completely forgets to count that he is going to eat at his own expense in USA.
• With $2200 per month, and counting just regular 160 hours (40 hours a week) a month, he has been paid around $13.75 per hour. In reality Nishit has to work 8 to 10 hours a day at HenWorth and at late night co-ordinate work with overseas office in India for another 3 to 4 hours resulting in approximately 12 hours a day workload, resulting in approximately 240 hours a month. In this conservative estimate, the weekends are excluded. So in reality Nishit makes this $2200 per month, but his rate per hour pay is $9.16 per hour ($2200/240). Nishit converts it in Indian currency and feels that he is making lots of money.
• Do you know that in America if you work in McDonalds or Pizza Hut or Domino’s Pizza you can make more than $9.16 per hour?
• Do you know that if Nishit would have performed the janitorial duties (like cleaning toilets, wiping floors) in HenWorth, he will be paid more than $9.16 per hour? With such a poor pay rate, Nishit is just working at near federal minimum wage. Click here to see clickable map of minimum wage in USA astate wide.
• If you let American read above hours and pay statistics of Nishit he would tell it hey man this is slavery!. I am an American with some reputed degree in IT; I just cannot work at non-sense hourly pay rate for unusual amount of hours.
• And of course for both the jobs working as a Sandwich Maker at McDonald or performing janitorial duty, there will not be any extra hours and stress to carry on and still you would have a decent pay. Nishit’s assignment carries both, working extra hours and time to time stress.
• Last but not the least, Nishit simply does not realize that he is making less than what a janitor would get paid in USA at end of day or at the end of month.

Why Nishit would sacrifice his personal life by working inhuman hours and accept such a workaholic overseas assignment and IT slavery?

• Nishit wants a B1 stamping on his passport so when he stands in a line at US consulate for getting H1B visa or L1 Visa there is a less chance of getting it rejected.
• Working in America is Nishit’s dream and he thinks that this is the biggest opportunity for him.
• Overseas project will shine his resume and sometime a matrimonial profile.
• Nishit feels real proud of Going to America on company’s expense; it also brings a social pride. His parents proudly tells to relatives around them “Nishit has gone to USA for work purpose”.
• By all means Nishit thinks that it is a best way to taste the work and culture of America and if the taste meets his criteria Nishit’s next step would be to come to USA on more long term visa such as L1 Visa or H1B visa.

Indian IT talent is known to make a short term compromises to get a long term gains, sometime it is to earn a pride , sometime it is to taste American culture, however if a friend/relative around you is telling you a big story about going to America on B1 visa in a lavish style. Forward this article and tell them that you are nothing but a perfect IT slave to work in America.