US must stop hate crimes & India Inc needs to be vigilant about visa abuse

The murder of 32-year-old Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an Indian technology worker from Hyderabad, by Adam Purinton, a white US Navy veteran, in a crowded bar in Kansas City last week has understandably shocked the whole country. Before opening fire on Kuchibhotla and his friend, Alok Madasani, who was injured in the shooting, Mr Purinton reportedly shouted, “Get out of my country”. He confessed later that he had mistaken them for West Asian Muslims. There is no doubt that this is yet another example of racial hate crime in the US. 

The incident has understandably led to fear among the minority Indian-American community, which feels it is being targeted by United States President Donald Trump’s controversial plan to ban travellers from certain countries in order to realise his campaign pledge of putting “America first”. In the first 10 days after Mr Trump’s election, more than 1,000 reports of hate incidents, almost a fifth of the number reported in 2016, have been documented. At a news conference on Saturday, Kuchibhotla’s widow Sunayana Dumala asked the US government what it would do to stop hate crimes against minorities. Although she did not mention anyone by name, she did say, “Not everyone will be harmful to this country.” Such hate crimes must be condemned and the US government has a crucial role to make sure that the so-called white nationalism does not get out of hand. 

But there is another dimension to the problem. It is a fact that there is widespread anger among many Americans against those abusing US visa norms. To be sure, there have been growing concerns about how immigrants game US immigration laws to live and work in that country and, in the process, take away jobs from American citizens. This anger was one of the main planks of Mr Trump’s acerbic presidential campaign last year. Even after stepping into the White House, Mr Trump has refused to back down on his campaign promise of getting rid of “bad people” who are in the US illegally. Much of that anger is towards Mexicans and inhabitants of several Muslim-majority nations. But, many expect Indians to be adversely affected by this charge in no small measure. That is because, as estimates suggest, Indians are the fastest growing illegal population in the US, and as many as 500,000 may now be running the risk of being deported. 

Implementing Mr Trump’s “war on immigrants”, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been conducting deportation raids, Operation Cross Check, in several states. In this regard, it is important to note that Indian information technology (IT) companies rely heavily on H1B visas when employees are sent to the US and L1 visas when their staff is transferred. In fact, India is the largest single-country source for H1B visa hires. But, even reputed IT companies have been accused of visa abuse in the past. In 2013, in what was then the largest amount ever paid in an immigration case, Infosys agreed to a civil settlement with the US Department of Justice over the alleged misuse of a different immigration visa, which included a $34-million penalty. Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar is travelling to the US on Tuesday to raise the issue of the safety of Indians in the US as well as to convince the US government how Indian IT workers increase American companies’ competitiveness. It will be best if Indian companies and individuals urgently get their paperwork in order.