Trump should walk the talk on the H1B visa issue

Indian tech workers cannot be equated with those sneaking across borders

After months of woes related to the increasing restrictiveness of the American visa regime, President Donald Trump provided a sliver of hope to India’s technology professionals by saying that he wants a lot of people with merit to come to the United States. It is very important, Mr Trump said, to have people coming in on merit to help the United States. However, restrictions on the visa regime, part of Mr Trump’s “America first” and “Buy American, Hire American” policies aimed at ensuring more jobs go to American citizens, have become an irritant in bilateral relations.

India has been hit hard by the Trump administration’s changes to the H-1B visa regime. Technology firms use the H-1B visa to hire tens of thousands of professionals from India for specialty occupations. But the Trump administration temporarily halted the premium processing for H-1B for clearing applications in 15 days for an additional fee, made the evaluation process for programmers more stringent and made other changes, such as doubling the minimum salary requirement.

It is understandable for Mr Trump to talk about being tough at the borders of the US to prevent the entry of those he describes as “criminals” – this is the sort of talk that has endeared him to his support base. But it makes little sense for his administration to be taking steps that affect Indian technology workers, who are hardly sneaking across the US borders. As the US restrictions have kicked in, more and more Indian technology professionals have begun looking at opportunities in Canada and European nations. The US doesn’t have enough skilled technology workers and Mr Trump should walk the talk about more people coming in on merit by having a re-look at his plans to change the H-1B visa regime.