Indian Document Verification Update
Posted Mar 18, 1999

In the October 1998 edition of the Law Office of Sheela Murthy's Immigration Law Bulletin, we indicated that while processing H1B Petitions, the INS Service Centers have been referring Indian educational and experience documentation to the Consulates in India for verification. We mentioned that INS at the time was finding a fairly high fraud rate, and we questioned the accuracy of that INS determination. Our November, 1998 Immigration Law Bulletin gave an update as to processing times for the verification requests.

INS has now revised that fraud rate downward, to 38% overall: 18% of academic documents and 36% of experience letters. These figures come from the Texas Service Center. Apparently, most of the document referrals are from the Texas and Nebraska Service Centers. Both Centers say that response time has been uneven, from 2 weeks to over 4 months to obtain verification from the Anti-Fraud Unit in India based on their efforts to track down information from Universities or previous employers.