H-1B visa-holders see hope in Trump’s review order

IMMIGRATION VOICE ESTIMATES THAT THERE ARE SOME 1.5 MILLION H1B VISA HOLDERS IN THE US WAITING FOR GREEN CARDS, A LARGE PROPORTION OF WHICH ARE FROM INDIA

When Gokul Gunasekaran was offered full scholarship for a graduate programme at Stanford University, he saw it as the chance of a lifetime.

The Chennai-resident already had a job offer from an oil company after getting his undergraduate degree. He came to the US instead, got the Stanford degree and now works as an engineer at a startup in Silicon Valley.

But for the past five years, he has been waiting for a green card that would give him full rights as a permanent resident. In the meantime, he is holding on to an H-1B visa, which permits him to live and work in the US but does not allow him to easily switch jobs or start his own company.

“It was a no-brainer when I came to this country, but now I’m kind of regretting taking that scholarship,” said Gunasekaran, 29, who is also the vicepresident of an NGO, Immigration Voice, which represents immigrants waiting for green cards.

Immigration Voice estimates that there are some 1.5 million H-1B visa holders in the US waiting for green cards, a large proportion of which are from India.

Many of these immigrants welcomed US President Donald Trump’s review order to the federal departments overseeing the programme, a move that may lead to H-1B visas being awarded to the highest-skilled jobs rather than through a random lottery.

The immigrants hope that merit-based H-1BS might then lead to merit-based green cards.

“I think less random is great,” said Guru Hariharan, the CEO and founder of an e-commerce startup.

‘Almost like indentured servants’ The H-1B and the green card system are technically separate, but many immigrants from India see them as connected.

The number of green cards that can go to people born in each country is capped at a few percent of the total, irrespective of the size of the country’s population. There is a big backlog of Indian-born people in the line, given the size of its population and the number of its natives in the US waiting for green cards.

That leaves many of those immigrants stuck on H-1B visas while they wait, which makes them almost like “indentured servants,” said Gaurav Mehta, an H-1B holder.

Mehta has a Us-born son, but he could be forced to take his family back to India if he loses his job and cannot find another quickly.

The H-1B visa is tied to a specific employer, who must apply for the visa and sponsor the employee for a specific job laid out in the visa application. To switch employers, the visa holder must secure their paperwork from their current employer and find another employer willing to take over their visa.

A few executives worry that allocating H-1BS and green cards based on salary would hurt startups that cannot afford high wages. In the meantime, H-1B holders like Nitin Pachisia are

hopeful that changes to the H-1B visa programme could revive interest in making the system focussed on immigrants who are likely to start companies and create jobs.

“If the purpose of our highskilled immigration programme is to bring in the most talented people, let’s use that as a lens,” he said.