US visa fraud: Former Congress candidate accused of manipulating H-1B system
Kandi Srinivasa Reddy, a former Congress candidate from Adilabad who contested the 2023 Telangana assembly elections, is facing serious allegations of rigging the US H-1B visa lottery system. According to an investigative report by Bloomberg, Reddy allegedly increased the odds for his staffing company clients by submitting multiple applications under different company names for the same individuals.
Reddy has denied the accusations, asserting that his actions are within legal bounds. «Filing multiple entries is legal,» Reddy said, questioning why he was being singled out when 5,000 other companies reportedly employ similar strategies. He further clarified that his firms have secured only 302 visas out of 425,000 in the past five years.
An NRI entrepreneur, Reddy founded Cloud Big Data Technologies LLC in 2013. Bloomberg's report indicates that Reddy's firm, along with other entities he controls, submitted over 3,000 entries, acquiring a substantial number of H-1B visas since 2020. The H-1B visa lottery, a key aspect of US employment policy for foreign workers, allocates a limited number of visas to skilled individuals. In 2023, 446,000 applicants vied for just 85,000 available visas.
The Bloomberg investigation highlights how staffing and outsourcing companies, including those linked to Reddy, allegedly exploit the lottery system, potentially disadvantaging other U.S. businesses and skilled immigrants. The report claims Reddy's companies, such as Machine Learning Technologies LLC, often submitted duplicate
