H-1B Visa Reboot: US Unveils Game-Changing Plan During PM Visit

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Jun 22 2023 04:22 PM
ANIKET DIXIT

Washington: Using this week's state visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help some skilled workers enter or remain in the country, the Biden administration will make it simpler for Indians to live and work in the United States, according to three people familiar with the situation.

Indian nationals use the US H-1B programme more frequently than any other country, accounting for 73% of the nearly 442,000 H-1B workers in 2022.

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Using this week's state visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help some skilled workers enter or remain in the country, the Biden administration will make it simpler for Indians to live and work in the United States, according to three people familiar with the situation.

One of the sources said that as part of a pilot programme that may be expanded in the upcoming years, the State Department could announce as soon as Thursday that a small number of Indians and other foreign workers on H-1B visas will be able to renew those visas in the US without having to travel abroad.
Indian nationals use the US H-1B programme more frequently than any other country, accounting for 73% of the nearly 442,000 H-1B workers in 2016.

Before they are announced, the steps could change and are not set in stone. The White House chose not to respond.

The U.S. government annually offers 65,000 H-1B visas, along with an additional 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees, to businesses looking to hire skilled foreign workers. The three-year visas can be extended for an additional three years.

According to U.S. government data, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services in India, as well as Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta in the United States, have employed the most H-1B workers in recent years.

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According to the spokesperson, allowing some of the temporary foreign workers to renew their visas in the United States would free up staff time for visa interviews at consulates abroad.

According to one of the sources, some employees with L-1 visas, which are available to people transferring within a company to a position in the U.S., would also be included in the pilot programme.

Another of those sources claims that a different initiative to reduce the backlog of visa requests at American embassies in India is finally making headway. This initiative is anticipated to come up in discussions between the delegations of the two countries this week in Washington.

India has long been troubled by the challenges its citizens, including those employed in the technology sector, have in obtaining visas to reside in the United States. At the end of April, the Labour Department estimated that there were more than 10 million unfilled positions in the country.

Thousands of tech workers have been laid off this year, and some H-1B visa holders in the U.S. are among them. As a result, they are scrambling to find new jobs within a 60-day "grace period" or leave the country.

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The Biden administration has been working for months to increase Indians' access to visas in an effort to circumvent Congress' lack of political will to enact comprehensive immigration reform. In part to better compete with China, President Joe Biden wants to bring together the two biggest democracies in the world.

After Washington stopped almost all visa processing worldwide in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. visa services are still working to reduce a backlog. Some families have been divided for extended periods of time as a result of the visa backlog, and some have expressed their sorrow on social media.