H-1B Visa rules likely to be relaxed

H-1B Visa: Hurdles likely to be removed

Bengaluru: H1B visa rules that were tightened by the US administration under Donald Trump are likely to be relaxed soon.

As per the experts, the administration under Joe Biden will ease the rules pertaining to the visa as he is in favor of allowing skilled-workers to work in the US.

Pareekh Jain, an IT outsourcing advisor and founder of Pareekh Consulting also believes that many hurdles related to H-1B Visas are likely to be removed.

A policy document of the Biden campaign also hints that he is going to relax the rules and regulations of the visa process.

During the past two years, the Trump administration has put a lot of hurdles for H-1B Visa seekers.

On 22nd June this year, he had signed a proclamation freezing the visas till the end of the year.

Due to the freezing of the visa, many mid-tier IT firms are facing problems in completing the projects as they are unable to find an adequate number of high-skilled employees.

COVID-19 pandemic as the justification

Trump used the COVID-19 pandemic as the justification for imposing restrictions on immigration.

The economic disruption caused by the pandemic has led to a groundswell of opposition among Americans to immigration and foreign workers with various polls showing more than two-thirds supporting restrictions.

However, US businesses are not in favour of restrictions on the visas and asserted that they would, in fact, affect the nation’s economy.

Proposal to scrap lottery-based system for H1B visa

There was also a proposal to scrap the computerized lottery-based system to grant the visa and shift to a wage-level-based selection process.

Those offered the most wages will get priority instead of those hitting “a lucky number” in the lottery, an official had said.

It may be mentioned that Indians are the single largest group of H-1B Visa-holders accounting for nearly 74 percent of the work visas.