As reported by a trio of individuals with knowledge of the present scenario, the Biden administration intends to make it simpler for Indians to reside and work in the USA This is done amid Indian PM Narendra Modi's official visit to the USA this week to assist certain skilled professionals from India in arriving or residing in the nation.
Indian nationals comprised 73% of the roughly 442,000 H-1B employees in the last fiscal year of 2022, making them by far the majority of prevalent applicants of the US H-1B visa programme.
Based on reports, the US State Department is expected to declare that a restricted number of Indians along with other overseas employees on H-1B visas might be allowed to renew their visas within the US with no need to travel outside of the country under the pilot programme that may be broadened in the upcoming years.
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Organisations looking for qualified foreign workers can apply for 65,000 H-1B visas annually from the US government, plus an extra 20,000 visas for skilled foreign workers with higher educational degrees. The three-year visas are renewable for an additional three years.
Another US official stated that the Biden administration recognises that the portability of their workforce is a tremendous asset. The objective is to address things in a rather comprehensive manner. The US State Department has previously put forth a lot of effort to come up with innovative solutions to problems, the envoy concluded.
Further, another US envoy stated that a different attempt to reduce the backlog of visa requests at US embassies in India is now making forward. This attempt will probably come up in negotiations between the two nations' representatives in Washington, DC, before the end of June 2023.
India has traditionally been troubled by the challenges its nationals, notably those employed in the technology sector, have in obtaining US visas to reside in the country. At the end-April 2023, the Labour Department estimated that there were over 10 million unfilled positions in the United States.
A portion of the millions of tech employees in the US with H-1B visas who were unexpectedly laid off this year are scurrying to seek new jobs within a 60-day "grace period" or relocate to their homelands.
Bloomberg Law originally revealed the plans for a trial programme in February 2023. Further, when asked about the proposed date of the pilot programme's introduction or which US visa classes would be eligible for, a representative for the US State Department also was silent.
The spokeswoman stated that the pilot programme would start with only a handful of cases to scale it over the next one to two years, but declined to define the exact number. The White House opted not to comment, noting that the actions might shift and are not definitive before they are disclosed.
As per one of the individuals, some employees with L-1 visas, which are accessible to personnel shifting within an organisation to an opening in the US, would also be included in the pilot programme.
A US government report indicates that Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta are among the companies that have used most H-1B workers recently.
Source: NDTV
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