TRUMP TIGHTENS VISA RULES AHEAD OF US ELECTIONS
The US government has published a set of rules that will result in American firms shelling out more to hire foreign workers and narrow the criteria for visa applicants. In the first set of rules, the US Department of Labour has increased the minimum wages for H-1B, H-1B1, E-3 and I-140s types of visas. The prevailing wage is subdivided into four tiers, or wage levels, representing the range of skills from entry-level to experienced. The rule changes the prevailing wage levels 1-4 from the 17, 34, 50 and 67 percentiles to 45, 62, 78 and 95 percentile of surveyed wages from the Bureau of Labour Statistics. The wage-hike rule comes into effect immediately. Most H-1BS are paid in the bottom slots, which are the ones that have been increased the most.
The US government has published a set of rules that will result in American companies shelling out more to hire foreign workers and narrow the criteria for visa applicants.
In the first set of rules, the US Department of Labour (DOL) has increased the minimum wages for H-1B, H-1B1, E-3 and I-140s types of visas. The prevailing wage is subdivided into four tiers, or wage levels, representing the range of skills from entry-level to experienced.
The rule changes the prevailing wage levels 1-4 from the 17, 34, 50 and 67 percentiles to 45, 62, 78 and 95 percentile of surveyed wages from the Bureau of Labour Statistics. The wage-hike rule comes into effect immediately. Most H-1BS are paid in the bottom slots, which are the ones that have been increased the most.
“The primary purpose of these changes is to update the computation of prevailing wage levels under the existing four-tier wage structure to better reflect the actual wages earned by US workers similarly employed to foreign workers,” the department said in a statement.
The changes come at a time when US President Donald Trump heads for reelection in less than three weeks. Trump has been emphatic of his anti-immigration stance ever since he entered politics four years ago. The US government has been taking stringent measures with respect to visa rules since the pandemic broke out so that American workers are preferred over foreign labour.
"They (US employers) will have to pay much higher salaries and the criteria to qualify an employee for (obtaining) an H-1B (visa) will be much harder," said Poorvi Choutani, founder and managing partner at Lawquest, a Mumbai-based immigration law firm.
"However, the rule is likely to be the subject of federal lawsuits. DOL took the rare step of issuing the regulation with immediate effect, no advance notice or opportunity for public comment, and without an economic impact analysis, all of which make the rule vulnerable to challenge," Fragomen, a New York-based immigration services law firm, said on its website. "Plaintiffs in any litigation are likely to seek preliminary injunctions to block DOL from enforcing the rule while challenges are litigated in court."
Separately, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a long-planned regulation to tighten H1B eligibility criteria and impose new obligations on H-1B employers after pushing the rule through a fast-track regulatory review.
The new rule will require companies to make "real" offers to "real employees", therefore closing loopholes and preventing the displacement of the American workers, it said. This will also boost DHS'S ability to enforce compliance through worksite inspections and monitor compliance before, during and after an H1-B petition is approved.
An H-1B specialty occupation is one that normally has a minimum requirement of a bachelor's degree or equivalent. "The new regulation tightens the regulatory definition of a specialty occupation to mandate that the bachelor's degree requirement be more directly related to the specific H1B specialty. The rule explicitly states that a position is not a specialty occupation if a general degree — such as business administration or liberal arts — is sufficient to qualify, without any further specialisation," Fragomen said. The rule will be published in the Federal Register on October 8 and take effect 60 days later. It will apply to all H-1B petitions, including extensions and amendments, filed on or after the effective date of the rule.
US Secretary of Labour Eugene Scalia said that these changes will strengthen foreign worker programmes and secure American workers' opportunities for stable, goodpaying jobs.
Meanwhile, Nasscom, the apex body for Indian software industry, said the changes announced to the H-1B visa programme would restrict access to talent and harm the American economy, apart from slowing down research and development into solutions to the Covid crisis.