Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 7: Thousands of Indians, particularly in the information technology profession, keen for a stint in the United States, are likely to be adversely affected by the US government’s decision to impose new restrictions on the issuance of H-1B non-immigrant visa as part of the president Donald Trump’s election sop to woo the voters by promising to “protect” the American workers.
The “interim final rule” formulated by the Department of Homeland Security was announced on Tuesday night soon after the COVID-19-hitTrump returned to the White House on being released from the hospital after only three days of treatment. With only less than four weeks to go for the presidential elections due to November 3, the interim rule was set to further narrow the definition of “specialty occupation.”
Announcing the new visa rules, the Trump administration said the measure was aimed at protecting American workers, restoring integrity and to better guarantee that H-1B petitions were approved only for qualified beneficiaries and petitioners, a move which was likely to affect thousands of Indian IT professionals.
Many technology companies particularly depend on the H-1B visas to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in “speciality occupations” that require theoretical or technical expertise not available locally.
Though various industrial sectors criticized the move on the ground that it would deny the US access to skilled talent, the Trump administration with an eye on the local voters has decided to strictly implement the new rules under which the companies seeking H-1B visa for its employees would be required to make real offers to real employees, by closing loopholes and preventing the displacement of the American workers. The new rules would also enhance the department’s ability to enforce compliance through worksite inspections and monitor compliance before, during and after an H1-B petition is approved.
The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.
Already a large number of Indians on the H-1B visas have lost their jobs and are headed back home during the coronavirus pandemic that has severely hit the US economy and the government’s new decision was certain to hit thousands of Indian IT professionals, the experts said.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, the interim final rules would be effective 60 days from their publication in the Federal Register, the US equivalent of Gazette of India. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services was forgoing the regular notice and comment period to immediately ensure that employing H-1B workers would not worsen the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 and adversely affect wages and working conditions of similarly employed US workers, it said.
The experts point out that the pandemic’s economic impact was an obvious and compelling fact that justified good cause to issue this interim final rule. “We have entered an era in which economic security is an integral part of homeland security. Put simply, economic security is homeland security. In response, we must do everything we can within the bounds of the law to make sure the American worker is put first,” said Acting Secretary Chad Wolf.
US Secretary of Labour Eugene Scalia said these changes would strengthen foreign worker programmes and secure American workers’ opportunities for stable, good-paying jobs.
The US Department of Labour was strengthening wage protections, addressing abuses in these visa programmes and ensuring American workers were not undercut by cheaper foreign labour, she said.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, the H-1B programme was intended to allow employers to fill gaps in their workforce and remain competitive in the global economy, however, it had now expanded far beyond that, often to the detriment of US workers.
The department claimed that the data available with it show that more than half-a-million H-1B nonimmigrants in the US had been used to displace US workers, which had led to reduced wages in a number of industries in the US labour market and the stagnation of wages in certain occupations. “This is part of a larger Trump administration goal in coordination with the Department of Labour to protect American workers,” it said.
“It is essential that the methodology used by the Department in calculating the prevailing wage rates accurately reflect what US workers performing the same kinds of jobs and with similar qualifications make to ensure employers cannot use foreign workers in place of US workers,” it said.
The interim final rule, it said, would improve the accuracy of prevailing wages paid to foreign workers by bringing them in line with the wages paid to similarly employed US workers. “This will ensure that the Department more effectively protects the job opportunities and wages of American workers by removing the economic incentive to hire foreign workers on a permanent or temporary basis in the US over American workers,” it said.
The experts quoted the Department of Homeland Security to point out that the H-1B work visa regime had over the years gone far beyond the mandate for which it was launched, often “to the detriment of US workers”. Therefore, in order to bring back the integrity to the work visa regime, the DHS has announced some changes which would ensure that H-1B petitions are approved only for “qualified beneficiaries and petitioners”.
With this, the companies and agencies which hire workers on H-1B visas would have a tough time proving to the immigration agencies that such employees were not available from the domestic pool of US workers.
The second proposed change relates to companies allegedly making fictitious work offers to fictitious employees just to fulfill their quota of H-1B visa applications approved. The US administration had in the past alleged that both Indian and the US-based companies have often given H-1B work visa offers to foreign employees “just on paper”, thereby allowing them to evade some part of taxes, while also undercutting the jobs for eligible US workers.
Every year, the US administration issues 85,000 H-1B work permits in all. Of these, 65,000 are for people with specialty occupations, while the rest 20,000 are reserved for those foreign workers who have earned a masters or higher university degree in the US. Every year, Indians and Indian companies corner a lion’s share of the number of H-1B work permits issued each year.
As of April 1, 2020, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had received about 2.5 lakh H-1B work visa applications, according to official data. Indians had applied for as many as 1.84 lakh or 67 per cent of the total H-1B work visas.