New Delhi: Twenty lakh rupees can get you the US’s sought-after Einstein Visa, granted only to top-tier researchers and professors. At least, that’s what specialised brokers and agents are promising. It’s ‘credential laundering’.
With the Donald Trump government tightening visa rules, ads are flooding LinkedIn, Facebook and Telegram: ‘Guaranteed EB-1 visas’, ‘Our specialised content writers will get you published’.
Agents have gamed the immigration and research system by offering a gamut of services. They will write your research paper. They will get it published. They will get you a seat on peer review boards. Put you on a jury panel, or better still, help you win an award. All of which give researchers an edge in their visa application.
This, however, is muddying India’s reputation in the global science community. Now, researchers, lawyers and immigration policy experts are sounding the alarm bells.
“The EB-1 programme was created to facilitate the migration of globally distinguished individuals, scientists, artists, and scholars based on proven and peer-recognised excellence. When this standard is diluted through fraudulent representations, it not only undermines the legitimacy of the system, but unfairly penalises genuinely qualified applicants whose profiles may become subject to suspicion by association,” said Dharminder Singh Kaleka, advisor for strategy and external relations at Closed Door Policy Consulting.
Known as the ‘Einstein Visa’, the EB-1 category is reserved for an “outstanding professor or researcher” or a professional with “extraordinary abilities”.
The rise in EB-1 visa applications also caught the attention of immigration lawyer Rahul Reddy in Houston. When he saw the ads, he conducted his own investigation into the fraud.
“We found some pretty concerning stuff about certain agencies that handle EB-1A petitions. Some websites have been widely used to create questionable evidence, like awards and judging panels. On top of that, agencies seem to be involved in similar activities. These places produce documentation that’s not exactly genuine and clearly doesn’t meet USCIS standards,” said Reddy, a partner at Reddy Neumann Brown PC.
The more professional the application, the pricier the service. And agents are confident of getting clients their visas.
“This is not a trivial procedural breach,” warned Kaleka.
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How is the system gamed?
On Facebook, agents operate across open groups and cater to people looking for ‘non-traditional’ ways to increase their chances of US visa approvals.
“I craft high-quality research articles that enhance your publication record, increase visibility and boost citation counts,” a post on a group with 2,400 members read.
Another account, with an AI-generated profile picture of a scientist, claims to have an “open co-author” spot up for grabs. The account offers to conduct experiments, write and even publish the research paper independently, but offers to include people as their co-authors for a “negotiable price”.
Reddy even called a few Indian agents and brokers posing as a potential client. And he was shocked by some of the responses.
“I came across these advertisements that claimed openly that ‘you don’t have to be extraordinary’, we will bring everything you need to get the visa,” Reddy said.
During his investigation, he posed as a student in a US university, looking to convert his EB-2 category visa to EB-1. While both categories make the eventual conversion to a green card easier, they cater to applicants with different levels of professional experience and achievements. For an EB1 visa, the applicant needs to be of prove “extraordinary ability”, like outstanding professors or researchers. For EB2, applicants only need advanced degrees.
“I told them that I did not have any scientific work to show, and asked if I would need to get anything done from my end to get to EB-1. I was clearly told that they had content writers who would do it for me,” the Indian-origin US lawyer said.
The service provider also offered to enlist Reddy for awards and accolades, which boost the chances of getting accepted in the category. They guarantee that with a payment of anywhere around $800—depending on the award—you can “definitely” get the award.
These claims nudged him to dig deeper. He began going through the websites of these awards. What he found made his jaw drop. Clients could not only pay and receive an award, but also serve as a judge on the award panel. The entire end-to-end service—from application to visa issuance—costs anywhere between $10,000 and $30,000.
ThePrint contacted two of these agents based in India.
One of these agents immediately disconnected the call, while the other denied providing the service through any “illegal means,” insisting that the service was only meant to “help” applicants navigate the “complicated” visa procedures.
“This is a parallel economy where immigration success is no longer based on earned merit but purchased optics. This distorts the purpose of skilled migration policy and endangers the integrity of global mobility frameworks,” Kaleka said, adding that it reflects poorly on countries such as India that are otherwise respected for their intellectual and professional contributions to the global workforce.
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A blog post goes viral
A blog post toward the end of last year blew the lid off the scam. On 20 December 2023, Debarghya Das, a San Francisco-based techie and venture capitalist, listed the “ultimate guide to an EB-1A” visa on his blog. It went viral.
“There are firms that work with you to understand the scope of your contributions and find outlets for you to publish them for niche trade magazines read by industry experts,” Das wrote.
His post, he went on to say, aimed at providing “actionable advice” to hundreds of “talented Indians” like himself, who are caught “helplessly” waiting for a visa to the US.
What makes this visa category desirable among those looking to settle in the US is that its waiting period is much lower compared to any other category.
This makes it the most sought-after category to admit foreigners to the US. But it’s also the most difficult to crack.
The US immigration rules list a 10-point checklist for this category. The applicant needs to meet at least three of these to be considered.
The application requires one to provide evidence of nationally or internationally recognised awards, membership in recognised associations related to their fields, published material, judging individually or as part of a panel for accolades, original scientific, scholarly, artistic, athletic, or business-related contributions, and authorship of scholarly articles in professional or major trade publications.
The applicant can also show proof of artistic exhibitions or showcases, a role in distinguished organisations or establish that they command salaries higher than their peers in the field.
Immigration lawyers and experts in India told ThePrint that because the EB-1 visa category is intended for a country’s “best of the best,” applications in this category typically face less scrutiny than those in other visa categories, where the chances of fraudulent activity are higher.
According to Reddy, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was re-examining multiple approved EB-1A and EB-1B category visas for fraud. There’s more scrutiny at the initial application level itself.
Experts said that in the last two years, there has been an increase in the number of I-140 revocations from India. The I-140 revocation refers to the cancellation of an approved immigrant petition of a foreign applicant.
“We’re keeping an eye on this closely to protect our clients from getting caught up in these problematic practices,” said Reddy.
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Larger impact
In 2012, Prataph Rajoura, a research scholar in India, was enrolled in a PhD programme in Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
For months, Rajoura struggled to convert his EB-2 category visa to EB-1, but despite his extensive work in his field, he was denied. His work was not enough to earn him the elite pass to stay on in the US.
He returned to India in 2016.
“It pains me that genuine scholars who have dedicated years of work to their field get denied because someone has paid enough money to an agent to get a guaranteed slot,” Rajoura said.
Experts said that such activities point to the lack of government checks and balances in upholding research integrity.
“It’s symptomatic of a larger problem of poor-quality, quick churning research being promoted across Indian research institutions,” Achal Agrawal, founder of India Research Watch (IRW), an Indian research watchdog, said.
“Our country’s reputation is being tarnished in the global scientific community.”
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)