Trump’s H1B tweak may send Indian techies home
HARD HIT 750,000 professionals may face deportation if new rules approved
WASHINGTON: Up to 750,000 Indian H-1B visa holders awaiting permanent residency could face deportation from the United States if the Trump administration clears a proposal to drastically alter a programme aimed at highly skilled foreign workers.
The proposal, aligned with President Donald Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” vision to boost manufacturing and protect local jobs for Americans, could also impact the way hi-tech companies operate in the United States.
Currently in the form of an internal memo going around the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that oversees citizenship and immigration, the proposal intends to end the provision of granting extensions to H-1B visa holders whose applications for Green Cards have been accepted, multiple government and industry sources said.
Amid the growing alignment between the US and India on foreign policy and counter-terrorism issues, primarily involving Pakistan, the H-1B visa programme has emerged as a rare irritant in bilateral ties.
“If implemented, this could lead to large-scale deportations, mostly of Indians, throwing hundreds and thousands of families into crisis,” said an official of Immigration Voice, an advocacy body. It, he added, plans to mount a challenge through outreach, and sue when a decision is made.
“The idea is to create a sort of ‘self-deportation’ of hundreds of thousands of Indian tech workers in the United States to open up those jobs for Americans,” a US source briefed by homeland security officials told McClatchy DC, which first reported the proposal.
An H-1B visa is granted for three years, with the provision of three more years with an extension. After this, visa holders return to their countries. Or, if they are approved for Green Cards, they wait in the US, using extensions.
For Indians, that wait could stretch for years, given the massive backlog caused by the system of a per-country annual cap.
The proposal is based on the power of discretion given to officials of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to decide on extensions for H-1B holders waiting for Green Cards — they could chose to extend from one to three years, and often chose the maximum, and grant some visa holders as many extensions as needed.
“If it has been left to their dis- cretion,” said a lobbyist. “They can theoretically decide not to grant any extension at all.”
A response was awaited to HT’s request for comments from the DHS and the USCIS.
The Indian government is watching the development closely, as it has with mounting alarm the administration’s previously announced plans and decisions to tighten H-1B rules and regulations to prevent the abuse of the programme to replace American workers with lowerpaid foreigners.
One of them was the plan to rollback in February the H-4 EAD – a regulation introduced by president Barack Obama to attract and retain highly skilled foreign workers by granting work authorisation to spouses of H-1B visa holders waiting for Green Cards. That will again mostly impact Indians.
The administration has also unveiled plans to redefine high speciality professionals for the purpose of H-1B visas. An overall review of the programme was also ordered by Trump last year.
The US grants 85,000 non-immigrant H-1B visas every year – 65,000 to foreigners hired abroad and 20,000 to foreigners enrolled in advanced degree courses in US schools and colleges.
An estimated 70% of these visas go to Indians – hired mostly by American companies such as Facebook, Microsoft and Google and some by US operations of Indian tech giants such as Infosys, Wipro and TCS.