Vijay D. Patil
H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States under Immigration Nationality Act, Section 101(a) (15) (H) which allows US companies/employers to employ foreigners/foreign workers in the speciality occupations for a period of up to six years in positions for which they have been unable to find American employees. The minimum salary of an employee holding H-1B visa is set at US$ 60,000 per year. H-1B visa holders are allowed to apply for permanent residency in the US as well as buy or sell property in the country. (If a foreign worker in H-1B status quits a job or is dismissed from the sponsoring employer, the worker must either apply for or be granted a change of status to another non-immigrant status, find another employer, subject to application for adjustment of status and/or change of visa, or leave the US.) H-1B visa is highly coveted in the technology industry. The US issues 65,000 H-1B visas to companies for foreign employees per year.
The new H-1B visa reforms bill by the US which is in the offing, proposes a radical overhaul of the process, increasing the minimum salary for visa holders to be $130,000, more than double the current minimum (US$ 60,000). This would mean that companies would have to either pay rather highly for the skilled workers, or not choose foreign employees in favor of American citizens. The new visa reforms bill also eliminates the category of lowest pay, and raises the salary level at which H-1B dependent employer are exempt from non-displacement and recruitment attestation requirements to greater than $130,000.
The H-1B visa bill removes the ‘per country’ cap for employment-based immigrant visas. It sets aside 20 percent of the annually allocated H1B visas for small companies and startup employers (50 or fewer employers) to ensure small businesses have an opportunity to compete for high-skilled workers. Among the biggest recipients of H1B visas each year are Indian IT firms, such as Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL, Igate, Cognizant, as well as global giants IBM, Accenture, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, among others. If this bill passes, they will to bear significantly higher costs for employing highly-skilled foreign citizens.
The visa reform may even create a gap in demand and supply for talent for smaller companies that cannot afford incurring high costs to employ skilled workers. In this connection India is taking up the matter with US authorities for redressal and it is hoped that the President of US Donald Trump, though having a hard stance on immigration, will ablige to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the favour Indian employees.
