‘Desi consultancies’: The dark side of H-1B visa and the American dream, how it impacts Indians

For decades, the H-1B visa program has been the centerpiece of America’s high-skilled immigration system. To its defenders, it is a vital pipeline that brings talented workers from around the world to power the United States’ economy. But to its critics, it is a system rife with abuse—one that can undermine American workers while also trapping foreign workers in exploitative arrangements.

A new book, Wild Wild East: Exiled Americans, Enslaved Indians and the Systemic Abuse of the H-1B Visa Programme, takes readers inside one especially shadowy corner of this world: the universe of so-called “desi consultancies”.