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-terror- ism 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 mas-
Trump pledges to “end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labour programme”, and hire American workers first.
Department of citizenship and immigration services (DCIS) temporarily suspends expedited processing of H-1B visas, rules entry-level computer programmer position would not qualify as a “specialty occupation” for H-1B visas.
Trump signs “Buy American and Hire American” executive order seeking a complete review of the H-1B programme.
DCIS tells its officers to give H-1B visa extension requests the same level of scrutiny as new applications.
Feb 2018: Rule that lets spouses of H-1B visa holders waiting for green cards to work on H-4 dependent visas may be revoked.
sive 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
Feb 2018: Employers hiring H-1B staff may need to pre-register, a move first proposed in 2011 and revived in Dec 2017.
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.