Former US ambassador Carla Sands sparks controversy with remarks on Indian immigrants

Former US ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands has stoked a major controversy as she said Americans are superiors than Indians as they believe in the Ten Commandments and are not fraudsters.

Appearing on President Donald Trump's aide Steve Bannon's show, Sands said Indians as a group make about twice the income per capita as American citizens, and that's because Americans come from a high-trust society and a Judeo-Christian background. "We don't have fraud in America, typically. People follow the Ten Commandments and we do unto others as we have them do unto us," the former ambassador said.

Sands said foreign cultures bring corruption with them. "These visa holders often have to pay the person who gets them the job 5or 10% of their salary in perpetuity. They cheat and they have fake diplomas. They pay for them in India. A ring has recently been busted that sold hundreds of thousands of fake degrees, mostly in STEM," Sands said, accusing India of giving medical degrees to students who did not even study medicine.

The comment triggered a massive row as immigration policy expert Daniel Di Martino, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, condemned Sands' blanket statement on Indians. "Indian immigrants succeed because they are educated, work hard & follow the law. These are conservative values. It's shameful for someone to say Indians succeed through fraud. This lame excuse is no better than the far left saying whites oppress blacks," Martino posted.

Martino argued that fraud does not work in the long run and Silicon Valley is not being run by Indian frauds. "Fraud does not work in the long run. Google, Apple, and Silicon Valley isn't hiring thousands of frauds, nor are hospitals. In fact, Indians are discriminated AGAINST by the leftist DEI regime. So stop lying," Martino said. "There is some fraud in every group, in everything, and everywhere. She (Sands) is wrong to claim Indians (in the U.S.) are exceptionally fraudulent or that they earn more due to that, that is outrageously false. They earn more for the same reason whites earn more than blacks on average," Martino added.

'American companies should hire Americans'

This is not the first time that Sands has expressed such a highly charged opinion. Recently, she wrote an op-ed for the Washington Times along with Samantha Flanigan and argued that Disney, Meta, Amazon should hire only Americans. "One example is the comprehensive network of India-based fraud that has devalued American skilled STEM labor. This fraud has also come at the expense of vulnerable Indian workers who are simply trying to pursue the American dream through legitimate means. Last year, Forbes reported that H-1B work-arounds have been used to avoid paying Indian workers fairly. Other accounts suggest employer exploitation through visa control, since a visa is tied to an employer," they wrote.