It has been reported that the United States President Donald Trump led administration is looking to renew the existing H1B visa requirements to ensure that only highly skilled foreign workers are allowed to enter the country instead of low skilled outsourced workers, the White House said last week.
Notably, the US government is planning to tweak the definition of specialty occupations and the definition of employment under the H1B work visa category, which is quite popular among Indian companies. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is likely to come up with the new proposal by January 2019.
The White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Coordination, Chris Liddell has reported that President Trump is looking for several ways to make sure that the people who graduate in a highly skilled area like technology would be the only foreign workers allowed to remain in the country.
“He finds that a very positive part of the overall immigration,” Liddell said.
When asked about Trump’s thoughts on H1B immigration, Liddell said, “He (Trump) has talked about merit immigration, clearly that (H-1B) fits in merit immigration.”
Larry Kudlow, the Chief Economic Advisor to President Trump reportedly has agreed that H1B attract talented professionals and companies are currently having difficulties hiring on this visa.
‘The president has laid this out. We need legal immigration. We need skill based, merit based immigration. Those are just few of the issues. That would be terrific. We can’t seem to get it through congress. But skill based, and merit-based and not a family chain based, I think they will be very useful’ Kudlow said.
Liddell added that the current government is finding out more ways to restrict the inflow of low-skilled outsourced workers, which currently numbers to 1,20,000 H-1Bs.
“So the president is 100 percent aligned with that,” Liddell said. “We’ll try and do it as much as we can by regulatory; if it can be done legislatively as well in some way that would as part of a merit-based system that would be fantastic.”
Liddell also explained how the H1B visa policy reform are crucial to keep more talented graduates in this country.
In related news, a coalition of American employers representing big IT companies including Facebook, Google and Microsoft has alleged that the US immigration agency was acting outside of its own regulations by holding back a large number of H-1B visas.