http://dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/33912_INS20.html



Companies focus of INS visa inquiry

Indian programmers no longer targeted

02/20/2000

Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO - Immigration authorities have dropped deportation
proceedings against 23 Indian computer programmers arrested during a
raid at an air base and instead will investigate the U.S. companies
that hired them.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service planned to learn whether
two Houston companies - Softech Consulting Inc. and Frontier
Consulting Inc. - skirted federal rules requiring Labor Department
approval to move the Indian nationals to Randolph Air Force Base
outside San Antonio.

INS district director Kenneth Pasquarell told the San Antonio
Express-News that the companies may have been involved in a type of
visa fraud called "body shopping."

The practice occurs when firms tell the government they'll place
highly skilled foreign workers in jobs that don't exist and then send
them to other cities.

In this case, Mr. Pasquarell said the companies claimed the workers
were in Houston and then later shifted them to San Antonio. The
companies could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Agents arrested the 40 Indian contract computer programmers at the
base last month after a six-month investigation of a visa scam.

The workers had been assigned to teams charged with developing two
computer systems at the Air Force Personnel Center. Base officials
said they did not have security clearances.

Fifteen workers were released on their own recognizance pending
further investigation, while 23 were awaiting deportation hearings.

Joe De Mott, an attorney representing the programers, was confident
the Indians now would be free to stay and work in the United States.

"I'd say they're pretty much out of the woods," he said. "The focus
has shifted now from the workers to the companies, and whether or not
the companies are in compliance with all requirements, and I think we
can show they are."

But letters written by Mr. Pasquarell this week advised the Indians
that they could be given "a period of time in which to depart the
United States" or possibly face deportation if their employers' visa
petitions were revoked by INS.