Indian-origin US diplomat Mahvash Siddiqui says she alerted senior managers about 'Cognizant-like' visa abuses 20 years ago

Mahvash Siddiqui says she encountered 'Cognizant-like' visa abuses 20 years ago at the Chennai consulate. The US Department of Labor recently announced the suspension of Cognizant from filing new Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) applications as a probe into alleged visa fraud is going on. Mahvash Siddiqui, an Indian-origin US diplomat who worked at the Chennai consulate two decades ago, claimed that junior officers repeatedly told their seniors how IT conglomerates game the visa system but they were never paid any attention.Siddiqui reacted to the PERM cancelation of Cognizant as she wrote an article for Center for Immigration Studies detailing her experience and understanding from the work she had done at the visa frontline 20 years ago. She said even 20 years ago, the workload was immense as they were adjudicating hundreds of visa applications daily. Siddiqui recalled that there was a Business Express program at that time which offered a fast visa adjudication for IT outsourcing firms like TCS, Wipro, Satyam, Infosys, Accenture and Cognizant. But not only foreign IT firms, Us firms like General Electric, Microsoft, and Honeywell, too were also accorded fast services where the...