U.S. makes H-1B visa renewals tougher:

U.S. makes H-1B visa renewals tougher:

Context:

Fresh changes in rules notified by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for renewal of non-immigrant visas will severely impact H-1B visa holders.

New Rules:

• The new rules are in line with the Donald Trump administration’s Buy American, Hire American Policy.
• An H-1B worker goes to the USCIS for three types of changes to his status- amendment, transfer and renewal.
• Amendment are sought when an H-1B employee changes the location within the same company, transfer is sought when he moves from one company to another; and a renewal is sought at the expiry of the visa, which is usually issued for three years at the beginning.

What is H1B Visa?

•  The H1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows companies to employ foreigners for a period of up to six years.
•  This visa is aimed at helping companies employ foreigners in positions for which they have been unable to find American employees.
•  H1B visa holders are allowed to apply for permanent residency in the US as well as buy or sell property in the country.
• The H-1B is a visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows U.S. employers to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations.
• If a foreign worker in H1B status quits or dismissed from the sponsoring employer, the worker must either apply for and be granted a change of status, find another employer or leave the United States.
• Effective January 2017, USCIS modified the rules to allow a grace period of up to 60 days but in practice as long as a green card application is pending they are allowed to stay.
• The regulations define a “specialty occupation” as requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor.

Criticisms:

• The aim of the H1B visa programme was to supplement the US workforce with high-skilled workers to do jobs that Americans are not skilled to do, not to replace the US workers.
• Many companies use the H1B visa to replace American workers with foreign ones, as the latter can be hired at lower salaries without compromising on the skill sets.
• In few cases, American employees have alleged that they were made to train H1B holders to do their own jobs, and then fired.

The new H1B reform bill proposals:

• Proposes a radical overhaul of the process, increasing the minimum salary for visa holders, more than double the current minimum.
• The H1B visa bill removes the ‘per country’ cap for employment-based immigrant visas.
• It sets aside 20% of the annually allocated H1B visas for small companies and startup employers to ensure small businesses have an opportunity to compete for high-skilled workers.
• The Bill encourages companies to recruit American workers. This provision would crack down on outsourcing companies that import large numbers of H-1B and L-1 workers for short training periods and then send these workers back to their home country to do the work of Americans.
• It explicitly prohibits replacement of American workers by H1-B or L-1 visa holders.
• The Bill seeks to give the Department of Labour enhanced authority to review, investigate and audit employer compliance as well as to penalise fraudulent or abusive conduct.

Impact of H1B visa reforms:

• Among the biggest recipients of H1B visas each year are Indian IT firms, such as Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL, Igate, Cognizant, as well as global giants IBM, Accenture, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, among others.
• If this bill passes, they will to bear significantly higher costs for employing highly-skilled foreign citizens.
• It may even  create a gap in demand and supply for talent for smaller companies that cannot afford incurring high costs to employ skilled workers.

• It will eliminate the Master’s Degree exemption for employers.
• The new rules may bring back restrictions on the spouses of H1B visa holders who until recently were not allowed to work in the US.

How is India responding?

The Indian government appears to have taken notice of the reports but it is unclear if it’s going to escalate the matter as a diplomatic issue. India has been largely silent on Trump administration’s recent immigration ban barring foreign nationals from seven Muslim-dominated countries.

However, India’s interests and concerns have been conveyed both to the US administration and the US Congress at senior levels.