Visa disruption concerns US Inc

In letter to Trump, H- 1B, worker status for spouses cited

New York, Aug. 24: The Trump administration’s “inconsistent” immigration policies, including on the H1- B visa for professionals, could “disrupt” operations of American firms and inflict “substantial harm” on their competitiveness, CEOs from top US companies have warned.

In a letter to US Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, members of the Business Roundtable, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Indra Nooyi, president and CEO of Mastercard Ajay Banga and chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems Chuck Robbins said that confusion around US immigration policy “creates anxiety for employees who follow the law.”

The Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs of America’s leading companies, told Nielsen on Thursday that “inconsistent government action and uncertainty undermines economic growth and American competitiveness.”

Due to a shortage of green cards for workers, many employees find themselves stuck in an immigration process lasting more than a decade, they said.

To avoid unnecessary costs and complications for American businesses, the US government should not change the rules in the middle of the process, the CEOs said, pointing out to the several policy memoranda over the past year by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services ( USCIS) has issued that has resulted in “arbitrary and inconsistent adjudications”.

“Companies now do not know whether a work visa petition that was approved last month will be approved when the company submits the identical application to extend the employee’s status,” they said.

In particular, the CEOs said they are worried about changes to the review process for H- 1B visas for workers, expected changes to the rules for spouses of H- 1B employees and planned changes to certain deportation rules.