Immigration issues: What is an H1B visa?

США 4677: Президентский указ о пересмотре H1B - пришла беда открывай ворота

President Donald Trump will be in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, introducing his Buy American, Hire American campaign.

The president will be signing an executive order directing the various agencies to work to prevent fraud when it comes to immigration and to make sure visas are awarded to the "most-skilled or highest-paid applicants" who come from a foreign country to work in a specific job in the U.S.

Heres a look at the H-1B visas, who gets them and how they work.

Here"s how the State Department says:

A citizen of a foreign country who seeks to enter the United States generally must first obtain a U.S. visa, which is placed in the travelers passport, a travel document issued by the travelers country of citizenship.

"Certain international travelers may be eligible to travel to the United States without a visa if they meet the requirements for visa-free travel. The Visa section of this website is all about U.S. visas for foreign citizens to travel to the United States.

U.S. citizens dont need a U.S. visa for travel, but when planning travel abroad may need a visa issued by the embassy of the country they wish to visit.

The H1B visa is an employment-based, non-immigrant visa. The visa allows foreigners to work in the United States on a temporary basis for up to six years.

Toget an H1B visa, the person who is to employ a foreign citizen must first offer that person a job and then must apply for the h1b visa with the U.S. Department of Immigration. Once the petition is approved, the visa serves as a permit to work in the United States for a specified period of time.

The H1B visa is for those in specialty occupations; those who possess a body of specialized knowledge for a particular job, and those who hold at least a bachelors degree or equivalent.

Some of the occupations include under H1B are:

-Accounting-Architecture-Arts-Biotechnology-Business specialties-Chemistry-Education-Engineering-Law-Mathematics-Medicine and health-Physical sciences,-Social sciences-Theology

What if they leave the job or the job is discontinued?

If the job is lost or discontinued, a foreign worker under an H1B visa must apply for a change of status to another non-immigrant status, or find another employer. If they can do neither, they must leave the United States. As of Jan. 17, the department of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services modified the rules to allow a grace period of up to 60 days to have the status changed or to leave the country.

How many people get an H-1B visa each year?

H-1B visas admit 65,000 workers each year. Another 20,000 graduate student workers are also allowed in the country on the H-1B.

They are awarded by a random lottery.

How will the process change after today?

Trumps executive order will instruct federal agencies to tighten oversight of H1-B visas to help prevent abuse of the system.

Source: http://www.statesman.com/news/national/immigration-issues-what-h1b-visa/qfJD8vZJODaDpLUORIVwZO/

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Watch: This film on H1B visas starring Chatur from 3 Idiots is causing ...

programmers and coders are not eligible for H1B visas henceforth: Trump Administration | INS TV 2017

Moneycontrol News

From The Namesake to Outsourced, films and sitcoms about immigrant Indians in the US are not a new phenomenon. But a new film on the theme is causing a stir with its subject matter.

Starring Ali Fazal (Fukrey) and Omi Vaidya (3 Idiots), For Here Or To Go? highlights the struggles by Indian immigrants who live in the US on the H1B temporary work visa and reflects on how ambition is affected by immigration status. It claims to be inspired by true immigrant stories.

The protagonist of the comedy-drama is Vivek Pandit (Ali Fazal), a young techie set to become a top hire at a healthcare startup. However, everything falls apart when the company realises that he has less than a year remaining on his work visa.

As he tries all means possible to get his visa extended, he encounters fellow immigrants who are considered temporary workers.

The film comes at a time when the US government has strongly hinted at implementing strict visa curbs to crack down on foreign workers, as the new regime pivots towards an "America First" policy. A bill was introduced in the US House of Representatives proposing to double the minimum wage limit for highly skilled workers from abroad.

Indian IT workers would be the worst affected by this reform and tech companies are now making efforts to step up their local hiring in light of the uncertainty. But White House spokesperson Sean Spicer said recentlythat the US may take longer than expected to tighten the laws as it undertakes a "comprehensive" review of the policy.

The film was directed by Rucha Humnabadkar and is written by Rishi Bhilawadikar, an IIT graduate who experienced the H1B uncertainty first-hand and currently works in San Francisco as an interaction designer.

While it has received moderate reviews from the mainstream media, the film has ruffled the feathers of American right-wingers.

The movies basic message is that foreigners are entitled to live in the US if they want to do so, regardless of American law or Americans wishes, reads an article on Breitbart News headlined "Cheap-Labor Lobby Funds New H-1B Song-and-Dance Movie".

The H1B visas are meant for highly-skilled foreign workers, but the articlesays the movie offers a very flattering image of the almost 1 million H-1B middle-skill contract-workers holding white-collar jobs throughout the United States.

Until recently, Breibart News was headed by President Donald Trumps Chief Strategist Steve Bannon.

The movie was released just four days before the US starts issuing H1B visas from April 3. In all, 85,000 h1b visas are up for grabs in this financial year. More than 2.36 lakh petitions were submitted last year and the recipients will be decided by lottery.

Source: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/watch-this-film-on-h1b-visas-starring-chatur-from-3-idiots-is-causing-a-stir-2251753.html

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While Everyone is Freaking Out about H1B Visas, What"s Going to Happen to Women on the H4?

Vice President Mike Pence on US Jobs, H1B and Corporate Tax Reforms

By Sharanya Gopinathan

Photo Courtesy: U.S. Customs and Border Protection via Flickr CC 2.0

Several news outlets reported yesterday on the panic that holders of the H1B temporary work visa to the United States are feeling after a draft of a proposed executive order decreeing a crackdown on such visas was leaked by news agencies. Outlets like Buzzfeed and CNN even stylishly reported that India was freaking out over the proposed changes. The changes are thought to include, among others, a doubling of the minimum salary required for h1b visa to $130,000 and making a US Masters degree mandatory for H1B visa holders.

What many outlets forgot to mention though, was the impact the proposed executive order might have on holders of the H4 visa, issued to spouses of H1B visa holders. Until very recently, those on the H4 visa werent allowed work in the United States, which naturally meant that they wereexcluded from the labour market, and thattheir legal and financial status was tied to that of their spouses immigration status. Ninetypercent of H4 visa holders are women, often highly educated and skilled spouses of employees in the IT sector. Being on the H4 visa meant that these women were virtually imprisoned, and it was after extensive coverage of their position that in May 2015, H4 visa holders were finally allowed to apply for Employment Authorization Documents to work in the United States.

If the word on the street is true though, the proposed visa crackdown couldmean that H4 visa holders (80 percent of whom are Indian) will have their much sought-after right to work in the United States heavily curtailedor removed entirely, reverting themto living under a highly restrictive visa regime. As seems to be the case with anything that Donald Trumpdoes now, we just have to hold our breath, hope for the best and expect the absolute worst.

Source: http://theladiesfinger.com/freaking-out-women-h4-visa/

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Indian IT anxiously awaits Trump"s verdict on the H1B

How Donald Trump"s Action on H1B Visa Effect Indian NRI"s in USA? || Story Board || Full || NTV

What exactly US President Donald Trump intends to do about the H1B in the near future has Indian IT perched on the edge of their seats in nervous anticipation, if not anxiety.

There"s good reason for their paranoia. Around 65 percent of the 65,000 H1B petitions approved a few years ago (out of around 230,000) went to outsourcing firms in India of the likes of TCS, Cognizant, Infosys, and Wipro. These companies make a good chunk of their annual revenue from sending engineers to the US on projects, after which they are supposed to return home. Infosys, for instance, rakes in at least 60 percent of its revenues in this fashion.

Any decision, whether a cap on the visas or another hefty fee increase, will be a blow to an industry that is already seeing flatlining growth and a murky, if not perilous future.

So when Trump started ranting against the program last year while on the campaign trail, alarm bells in the industry began to ring. A March 2016 post on Trump"s website quoted him as saying: "The H1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay." He later added: "If I am president, I will not issue any H1B visas to companies that replace American workers and my Department of Justice will pursue action against them."

Some say that, despite all this fire and brimstone, Trump has been contradictory and ambiguous, pointing to a rash of statements such as the one made during a Republican debate in March last year when he declared that he was "softening" his position, because "we have to have talented people in this country." However, he has also on multiple occasions talked about enhancing the tech talent in the country by giving graduate students an easy path to obtaining greencards, which could be more what that statement was about than anything else.

That said, his choice for attorney general, Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, is a ferocious and vocal critic of the H1B and will no doubt do his best to influence the president if his nomination goes through.

A MIDDLE GROUND?

Recent events have deepened the mystery. According to Reuters, Trump"s senior advisor Stephen Miller suggested deep-sixing the existing lottery system for the H1Bs and replacing it with visa petitions for jobs that pay the highest salaries. This is something that the Electrical and Electronics Engineers, that industry"s largest professional association, approves.

Reuters also suggests that at a meeting with the country"s tech titans a month or so ago, Trump was apparently not so energised to take a scythe to the visa program and "seemed to be searching for middle ground." Apparently, a dozen of the top tech executives in the country were in a huddle with him to try and figure this out. Amongst them was Microsoft"s Satya Nadella, who apparently tried to impress upon Trump the importance of being able to recruit from abroad when necessary. (In fact, both Nadella and Sundar Pichai, the boss at Google, probably benefitted from the H1B in their own career trajectories, which is as good a case as any for the benefits of the H1B.)

The ultimate irony however is that Trump has himself used the H2B programs to hire low-skill workers from Mexico, a visa program that has been heavily criticized by US government watchdogs for failing to protect American workers" rights. Trump"s team will also not disclose whether his wife Melania was on an h1b -- she has admitted to being on a visa -- in the 1990s when she was modeling in New York.

Nevertheless, what matters here is Trump"s inclinations within the tech firmament. What seems interesting about Trump"s role at the meeting was his apparent interest in potentially architecting the best solution for all -- dramatically different from his rhetoric on the stump. He was apparently keen to gauge whether one of the proposals on the table during the meeting that aimed at boosting the application fees as an effective way to thwart bulk filing of the visas was acceptable or not by the CEOs, to which they said that they had no objections. Reuters mentions that one of its sources at the meeting "didn"t think that the president was hostile to H1B visas," which is a dramatically different message to what was thought of last year.

A LONG HAUL

Meanwhile, most legal experts say that while some tweaks and minor tinkering can be done to the existing H1B process, effecting radical change would require a lengthy legal process with plenty of opposition in the form of challenges in courtrooms. Even changing the cap on the visa apparently will have to go through a Congressional approval process.

While that may be so, it is still probably an excruciating waiting game for Indian IT.

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/indian-it-anxiously-awaits-trumps-verdict-on-the-h1b/

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