Further, IMO, what you suggest was the best course that should have been adopted. It would have avoided the hullaballoo and provided the right incentive too. The NYC posting is sought after by diplomats. Being declared PNG would have served as punishment that sounds about right for what you should mete out to a diplomat who lies to you. It would also have sidestepped this business with Indian public opinion solidifying in large part behind the diplomat. Indians do not like their elites(although they dislike their politicians more). Adroit handling could have prevented her getting all the sympathy that she’s managed, and absent her arrest and strip search, would not have.
Devyani Khobragade seems to think this claim of hers bolsters her position. But, well, you asked for indication of duress, and if your employer tries to control what you do on your day off, that’s duress.
What kind of dope warrant are you talking about? If you mean one for non-violent drug sale, surely the charges here, if true, are more serious than that.
Who’s telling the truth? I don’t know. And we probably never will know because the government of India is bullying the US into short-circuiting our legal process. John Kerry probably thinks that good relations with the government of India is more important than the well-being of a few servants, and maybe he’s right. But it still stinks.
Paying someone who lives in New York $3-something dollars an hour and having them work excessive hours is mistreatment. Add to that the secret contract in which the maid apparently signed away the protections of US courts, and I can’t see how you can claim this wasn’t mistreatment. No worker of any national origin should be treated like that in the United States.
If you want to obtain a visa for a foreign national to work for you in the US then there is writing to be done. Otherwise, here in the US such arrangements are also not normally put into writing - unless the hired person is from abroad.
I have no idea who actually filled out the paperwork. Unlike you, I am making no assumptions. Presumably, it was signed by the employer and employee (even if one of the parties was illiterate there are provisions for that under the US legal system), even if it wasn’t filled out by either, and that presumes they knew what they were signing.
Of course not. I just don’t think it’s unlimited. It certainly shouldn’t extend to being able to harm others without consequences, even if historically the consequences have usually been to deport the offending party and not permit them to come back.
The marriage question is a thorny one - if a Muslim representative from a nation allowing up to four wives is working at an embassy in the US should he be allowed to bring all of his wives with him or not? Personally, I’m OK with that, but apparently my viewpoint is a minority in the world. I honestly don’t care what consenting and un-coerced adults in regards to sex/marriage/etc.
I very much DO care that someone is engaged in abusive employment arrangements. For one thing, it’s a hell of a lot easier to change one’s employment practices than sexual orientation. For another, no one needs a live in maid or “domestic worker”. It certainly is a very nice luxury, but a luxury is what it is. The vast majority of humanity get along just fine without one.
Unquestionably, this would have saved everyone a lot of grief.
In the matter of foreign nationals in the midst of a labor dispute it is routine for them to be permitted to stay in the US until the matter is resolved, so in that sense she has a visa, but it is no guarantee she can stay AFTER the matter is resolved. It is not at all unusual for foreign nationals to win a wage-and-labor dispute here in the US then immediately be sent back to their country of origin. So the maid and her family could still wind up back in India at the end of this.
I do not understand this matter of “absconding”. In the US an illegal contract is null and void, thus, if her contract with her employer turned out to be legally invalid she would no longer be bound by it and would thus have no obligation to remain in her employ, or in her residence.
As noted, it’s not possible at this point to know if she will actually be better off or not long term.
Yes, some of us really do consider that bad mistreatment. If you can’t understand it then at least accept it as a cultural difference.
I have said this before but apparently it’s beyond your grasp: American labor law applies to ALL workers in the US, including those from abroad. If she was in NYC then she was covered by US labor law. There is no except for maids of consular officials.
I’m the wrong guy to ask about the seriousness of narcotics violations, given that my opinion is that the various Controlled Substances Acts be abolished in their entirety. I picked dope warrants because, from the point of view of the authorities, they seem to merit an aggressive approach to arrest their perpetrators. Trying to assess their view of narcotics violations vs. a labor law dispute, I’d think the charges on Khobragade are less serious. Or are we going to send the U.S. Marshalls to pick up every restaurateur who screws their waitstaff out of tips and overtime?
As to the question of her not being allowed to moonlight constituting duress, are the holders of other employment visas allowed to take outside jobs? This site, which claims to be a “premier source of comprehensive information about U.S. legal immigration,” states that H-1B holders are allowed to work part-time for other employers, provided that those other employers also file new H-1Bs, and—this is the kicker—that the outside employment not violate their employee agreement with their existing employer. So, in practice, no. If true, does that restriction also constitute duress, such that the employment is unconscionable? Also, my employee agreement had an arbitration agreement within it, signing away my protections of the U.S. judicial system in favor of an arbitration system that I’m sure was equally biased between employer and employee. (That’s sarcasm, by the way.)
Ravenman may be correct in his view that no worker should be treated like that in the U.S. It’s certainly a laudable goal. Unfortunately, I think he’s going to get his wish by the work simply not being made available. After all, no one needs a domestic servant. That may be better for people like the maid. Or, like many of the indentured servants who helped settle these colonies and eventual United States, she might rationally prefer having the opportunity to have a job where she can make much more money than she could otherwise.
Moot point, as it’s clearly against the law.
And her visa was an official visa issued by the US government to people working in the US.
I wish to direct everyone’s attention to office press release on the matter by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.
For those who don’t want to read the whole thing, the relevant points from the US attorney - and keep in mind this is from Preet Bharara, NOT me.
- Khobragade attempted to evade US labor law
- Khobragade caused the victim and her spouse to make false statements as part of her scheme to evade US labor law.
- Preet Brarara wonders why there is so much outrage over the treatment of Khobragade and so little over the treatment of her maid.
- there have been other cases of prosecution of consular employees for mistreatment of domestic help so this is not unprecedented.
- the employee was paid less than minimum wage
- the employee was made to work more than the maximum 40 hours per week outlined in the visa documentation
As for the arrest:
- Khobragade was NOT arrested in front of her children.
- At the time of her arrest she was NOT handcuffed or restrained
- her phone was NOT seized - which actually is the standard procedure for arrests
- she was given the opportunity to make numerous phone calls to, among other things, arrange child care for her children. This is NOT standard procedure for arrests in the US
- “It is true that she was fully searched by a female Deputy Marshal – in a private setting – when she was brought into the U.S. Marshals’ custody, but this is standard practice for every defendant, rich or poor, American or not, in order to make sure that no prisoner keeps anything on his person that could harm anyone, including himself. This is in the interests of everyone’s safety.” [emphasis added]
No. But it is not the place of a employer who is violating your rights by paying you a sub-minimum wage to stop you from violating other US labor laws outside your 40 hours a week. And that’s what Devyani Khobragade is saying in her own defense! We haven’t yet heard what housekeeper Sangeeta Richard told the US authorities that led them to issue T (trafficing) visas in this case, as has been reported. But surely the housekeeper is making a more serious charge than what the consular official already admits to.
This gets to the real issue for me. I don’t have a tremendous problem with lying on the visa form. I don’t have a tremendous problem with paying a sub-minimum wage if you are a consular official from a developing country employing your own national. But if the Sangeeta Richard case amounts to an indentured servant running away from her master, I’m totally OK with Preet Bharara creating an international incident.
This isn’t to rule out prosecutorial overreach. As I wrote earlier, the US will probably cave to pressure and send her home without trial, resulting in us never knowing who was more in the wrong.
H-1B visas are for jobs requiring a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, not for household domestic help. And I will echo those who have already stated that U.S. labor laws apply to everyone working in the U.S., not just those whose employers don’t think they are better than everyone else. There are very good reasons for minimum wage and maximum working hour laws, and I know of no reason why this situation should be any different.
BTW I’ve never worked on a T visa (for victims of human trafficking), but a U visa (for victims of certain serious crimes who cooperate with law enforcement) can lead to U.S. permanent residence for the victim and qualifying family members. Further details here. (The U visa quota has already been reached for fiscal 2014, however.)
Eva Luna, U.S. immigration Paralegal
Further (missed the edit window): T visas can also lead to a green card for the trafficked person and qualifying relatives.
Whatever be the outcome of this saga, it has at least given us(Indians) a reality check about the humbug called a “strategic partnership” with the USA.
I’m curious about something. India was close to the Soviet union throughout the Cold War. Did they not pick up even a smidgen of socialism along the way? In other words, does the concept of workers’ rights mean nothing to Indians?
this issue involves consul general. involves govt. of US and India with different narratives on the episode and have different arrest procedures.
kindly open a seperate thread for your question n if I may suggest, be more curious abt situation of arab citizens of israel my sophisticated friend. thanks n bye.
That’s what *you *want this thread to be about.
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Knock yourself out.
And I don’t mean that as a figure of speech. I expect you to knock yourself out, like a boxer landing a right uppercut on his own glass jaw.
You got that right. And if you want to talk about double standards, you mentioned the Raymond Davis case: the US government protested, to be sure, but worked within the Pakistani legal system to resolve the matter. I didn’t see any American politicians inflaming the situation by encouraging Americans to protest at the Pakistani embassy, the US government didn’t reduce security at the Pakistani embassy, and I’m certainly not aware of any calls (such as you have made) for the arbitrary arrest of Pakistani officials who have done nothing wrong.
Not sure if this has been addressed…but the debate between bdysabba and Marley23 back around posts 160-190 is exactly the debate going on among (left-leaning) proponents of US immigration law reform: If we eliminate (as much as practically possible) the two-class system we have now (in which we pay many undocumented immigrants less than minimum wage, but that’s still more than they’d earn in their home country), supposedly the pool of formerly undocumented (now on a path to citizenship) workers will be reduced – but each one will be better off than otherwise. Is this a better situation overall? I think so, but it’s debatable.