Should we also mention that he only worked at GM for 3 years and that was his first job? Before that he was on a student visa for college, then grad school in West Virginia where his advisor proposed they apply for a federal grant to test emissions on German cars, and there were several people working on this taxpayer financed project. They collected the data and another member presented the data at a conference. They were not the ones that discovered that VW was cheating or how the cheating was done, but their paper was what called attention to the issue, prompting further investigation by others.
It's interesting that having 3 years work experience in the US after 12 years of education mostly financed by US taxpayers is sufficient to be called a "hero" who "discovered" something he was part of a team that is not mentioned, and presumed to be worthy of permanent citizenship.
Did he have noteworthy accomplishments at GM? Was he one of their top engineers? Little about his brief 3 year stint at GM is mentioned in these articles. I wonder why.
Most people would see the 12 years of taxpayer-financed education as a reason to keep him in the country. If he returns to India, taxpayers are losing a lot of the benefits of that investment.
are you sure it was taxpayer financed. As a former international student, the tuition for international students was 3x for locals at a big state university in the south. Besides football programs, most schools get their financing from international students.
> Besides football programs, most schools get their financing from international students
Citation? Why do our federal and state budgets have multi billion dollar line items for funding universities if it's just international students paying for everyone.
State universities accept a lot more than 3 in state students for every international student.
Some universities yes, others decidedly not. Did this person go to a public university?
Further, why is it so bad that we spend money to educate people, even if those people aren't Americans? What makes an American inherently more deserving of his spot in class?
I'm responding to someone who's claiming that the schooling was subsidized. I have no idea if that's true. His time in grad school at least would probably have included a lot of grants.
I'm not the one who claimed he was subsidized. I was responding to someone who made that claim as part of an argument against keeping him in the country.
He actually worked at Cummins first after getting his masters in 2006, and later went back to school for his PHD and then went to work at GM. His Linkedin is 100% open, so you should really do some basic research before questioning someone's background and if they're 'valuable' enough for your standards.
> 12 years of education mostly financed by US taxpayers
Clearly, you have no idea how the education system works in US. Most probably, only his PhD education was funded by a research agency for doing research, or if he was unlucky, like many PhD students he had to do TA apart from doing research for a living salary. Undergrad education is almost always not funded for any international student.
He was an undergrad for 4 years. He was in grad school for over 8 years. He then worked for 4 years at GM. So by the time he is 41 he has worked 4 years. He is laid off, with 4000 other people. Most of them were able to line up new jobs. He was not. If his engineering talent is as great as people here are suggesting, employers would be lining up to hire him. There's a massive talent shortage. Competent engineers do not stay unemployed. His main accomplishment is that while at a university in West Virginia he, and other students, did some emission testing on a project suggested by his graduate advisor. Contrary to claims in the thread, he did not discover cheating, that was found out by others. He did some emissions testing. That's great. We do need emission testers. How many? Don't know. Does he have exemplary skills in this? Where is the evidence.
The H1B program is not for permanent employment or a guarantee of citizenship. We have other programs that are more suitable for that. He spent 17 years here, 4 which he actually worked, and his work was not good enough to get a single job offer after layoff despite having a PhD (albeit from an almost totally unknown and undistinguished university).
You wish to argue he is entitled to US citizenship now. Why?
It appears that the US has more worker visas than any country in the world. I was just reviewing the numbers and couldn't find any countries that allow more people in on work visas. Likewise for student visas. We have one of the most generous immigration policies, if not the most, in the entire world. And the US lets in people from all countries, with a huge disparity - people from India are massively overrepresented. We are more generous with Indian nationals than any other origin.
Yet constant claims of racism, of hating the evil United States, of making one demand after another, of complete entitlement. Totally thankless, hateful, racist people making these comments, and totally contradicted by the actually measurable facts. It's absolutely shameful and disgusting to see this hate, disrespect and contempt for America.
This article makes very clear Dan Carder initiated and was in charge of the project. The article also gives shout outs to the grad students Marc Besch and Arvind Thiruvengadam for driving, and quotes Hemanth Kappanna as saying that they they attributed the discrepancies to technical defects or design flaws in the cars rather than deliberate wrongdoing: "It was interesting, but we never thought it would blow the lid off Volkswagen. Never, ever." This now has become a thriller of a hero unmasking a fraud through diligent insight and breathtaking research. Who devised this study, directed it and did the key research?
Mentioned in today's article is that Kappanna helped fill out the grant application. OK, that's something. And that is "more than US citizens do in their lifetimes". I am not convinced that is true. I will agree though that most US citizens don't in their lifetimes do 12 years of college followed by a brief undistinguished 4 year career, all by age 41. Most people in the US who are 41 have worked more than that. Most people in the US don't have the privilege and opportunity to attend college for 12 years. Wouldn't you agree? Is this what you are referring to when you talk about US citizens doing far less? You clearly have sneering disregard and contempt for US citizens, which is a common position these days, particularly from people raised racist societies based on hate and systems of entitled generational privilege such as the caste system, in contrast to the US's culture and legal system which repudiates all of that, instead being the land of opportunity, with nearly all of the population descended from recent immigrants, coming from every nation and ethnic group on earth.
I don't have any disregard for Americans or for that matter for any person based on their nationality or religion. I used "Americans" since this about American immigration system.
I do have a problem people trying to diminish the credentials of a person whom they do not know and have no idea about circumstances of his professional or personal life. He did not get asked to publish in NYTimes. Many immigrants are returning to their home countries, how many have stories have you seen published ?
Should we also mention that he only worked at GM for 3 years and that was his first job? Before that he was on a student visa for college, then grad school in West Virginia where his advisor proposed they apply for a federal grant to test emissions on German cars, and there were several people working on this taxpayer financed project. They collected the data and another member presented the data at a conference. They were not the ones that discovered that VW was cheating or how the cheating was done, but their paper was what called attention to the issue, prompting further investigation by others.
It's interesting that having 3 years work experience in the US after 12 years of education mostly financed by US taxpayers is sufficient to be called a "hero" who "discovered" something he was part of a team that is not mentioned, and presumed to be worthy of permanent citizenship.
Did he have noteworthy accomplishments at GM? Was he one of their top engineers? Little about his brief 3 year stint at GM is mentioned in these articles. I wonder why.