Gaming the Lottery with Multiple Entries
To increase your chances of winning a lottery, you may think it’s wise to buy many tickets. The more tickets you buy, the better your chances of winning.
Having multiple entries is perfectly fine in most lotteries, but may be considered illegal in the H-1B visa lottery.
After receiving 758,994 eligible registrations for fiscal year 2024 and selecting almost 111,000 for visas, the US Customs and Immigration Service says it has “undertaken extensive fraud investigations, denied and revoked petitions accordingly, and is in the process of initiating law enforcement referrals for criminal prosecution.”
The number of eligible registrations for beneficiaries with multiple eligible registrations increased from 165,180 (fiscal year 2023) to 408, 891 (2024), which “has raised serious concerns that some may have tried to gain an unfair advantage by working together to submit multiple registrations on behalf of the same beneficiary,” the USCIS said in a news release.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the USCIS has accused several small technology firms of colluding to give their potential hires a better chance in the lottery. Having multiple companies submit applications for a single individual isn’t necessarily illegal, but each company must have a real job.
“If companies that win a visa then quickly contract an employee out to third parties, or lay off an employee on the visa so he or she can switch companies, that could potentially amount to fraud,” the WSJ states.
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Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
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