Is The H-1B Finished?

Immigration experts say the H-1B visa, long ‘misused’ and ‘abused’, has fallen out of favour with both the Republican and Democrat administrations for decades. Even with Joe Biden as Us president, it is unlikely to become easier

- Pankti Mehta Kadakia

A few weeks ago, as a heady blue-versus-red vote count was underway, punctuated by see-sawing percentage points, halfway across the globe to elect arguably the world’s most powerful political leader, many Indian and Indian-Americans were on tenterhooks.

In October, the outgoing Donald Trump administration proposed yet another series of obstacles to the H-1B visa process, a popular way for Indians to immigrate into America. It hopes to do away with the computerised lottery system, which is a random selection process, and replace it with a wage-based system in which applicants will be selected based on salary levels.

This is the latest in a series of attacks against the H-1B programme, including a suspension on the entry of foreign workers (and therefore, issuance of new immigrant visas) until the end of the year that Trump announced in June.

However, Trump was not the only obstacle. Let’s break it down.

What’s going on with the H-1B?

According to the new rules, the wage criteria for those coming to the US on an H-1B visa, which is widely used by technology companies to hire skilled Indian workers, has been significantly increased by the Department of Labor (DOL). Later in the month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) made the announcement of doing away with the lottery, in a statement titled ‘DHS, Trump Administration Protect American Jobs from Unfair International Competition’.