Viral Video Shows PhDs for Sale in India
STATEWIDE - a viral video circulating social media from what appears to be a news broadcast shows shopfronts operating out of Delhi’s market district selling diplomas and doctorate degrees and theses for around ₹30,000, or $334. The video is another chip away at the narrative surrounding H1B Visas importing ‘highly skilled laborers’ into the U.S.
The video circulating documents a news reporter traveling the market district of Delhi and videotaping storefronts which are selling college degrees for several hundred dollars to customers expecting to use them to increase their prospective earnings through immigration programs. It is believed customers can also use them to navigate through the O-1 visa program as well, which yields higher earnings as ‘top-tier experts’ in education fields.
While fabricating degrees itself is a crime in India, enforcement of this mechanism is lax. Throughout much of the nation, "education bazaars" in cities like Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, and Chennai, provide individuals ready-made or custom-written PhD theses which can be used to coast customers through education programs and achieve unmerited degrees. Should that fail, many vendors offer fake PhD certificates from various universities, with prices ranging from a few thousand to several lakhs of rupees. Additionally, many research journals operating out of India will permit a 'pay to publish' option for customers needing to meet publication mandates to obtain academic promotion.
For many, the video represents another layer peeled back in the continuing conversation over 'legal' immigration in the U.S. and the debate on the prospective benefits and drains it may cause. The H1B and O-1 Visa work programs are often argued by big tech companies as essential to import labor that cannot be found domestically. However, many argue time and again the program is being found to be a house of cards built upon fake degrees and nepotistic hiring practices driven entirely by a desire for cheap, replacement labor.
Internationally, the Indian government has stated their goal is to increase remittances by $300 Billion annually by flooding western labor markets with an extra 50 million imported workers through programs like H1B. The prospect could spell disaster for the U.S. economy and heritage Americans already at a disadvantage against unyielding streams of replacement migration. Many others are asking what happens to entire industries when well-trained western workers are replaced overtime with unskilled replacement labor with fraudulent degrees. One may need only look at the bridge collapse in River Ganges, where twice in one year a bridge under construction collapsed into the water.
