The Trump administration has assured lawmakers and the American corporate sector that the public would get an opportunity to respond to its proposal of revoking work authorisation to H-4 spouse visas after they raised their concerns over the move, which will impact thousands of Indians.

H-4 visas are issued to the spouses of H-1B foreign workers. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa through which many Indians workers are employed in US companies. It allows the US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. It is the most sought-after visa among Indian IT professionals.

H-4 visas are issued only to very close or immediate family members of the H-1B visa holders. It includes the employee’s spouse and children less than 21 years of age.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had said that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will come out with a new proposal by January 2019 under which it is mulling to remove from its regulations certain H-4 spouses of H-1B non-immigrants as a class of aliens eligible for employment authorisation.

The new rules could impact up to 70,000 H-4 Visa holders who have work permits.

The USCIS has recently written a near identical letters to top US lawmakers and leaders of the corporate sector who had raised concern over the Trump administration’s proposal to revoke the H-4 visas.

“The public will be given an opportunity to provide feedback during a notice and comment period on any proposed revisions to regulations providing employment authorisation to certain H-4 non-immigrants,” L Francis Cissna, USCIS director, wrote to senators Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand in a letter dated October 16, which was posted on the organisation’s website this month.

The two lawmakers had urged not to revoke work authorisation to H-4 visas.

However, the letter makes no commitment on the fate of the decision to revoke the work authorisation to H-4 visas, except for saying that the DHS is committed to safeguarding the integrity of the immigration system and protecting the wages and job opportunities for US workers.

In a letter dated September 26 and addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielson, Harris and Gillibrand had said the administration’s proposal to revoke the employment authorisation of certain H-4 dependent spouses of non-immigrant H-1B workers would permanently force approximately 1,00,000 predominantly high-skilled women to abandon their professional careers.

“This will harm the wellbeing of these women and their families and have negative consequences for American communities where they live and work,” they had said.

In another letter dated July 23 and addressed to the DHS, as many as 34 US legislators had expressed concern that revoking work authorisation to H-4 visas would “create significant uncertainty and financial hardship for many highly skilled professionals who are vital to US economy”.

A group of top corporate leaders had expressed similar concerns to the DHS in a letter dated August 22.

The H-4 spouses are “often highly skilled” and have built careers and lives around their ability to “contribute to companies here”, they said.

“Other countries allow these valuable professionals to work, so revoking their US work authorisation will likely cause high-skilled immigrants to take their skills to competitors outside the US,” stated the letter, which among others was signed by Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco Systems; Roger K Newport from AK Steel Corporation; Doug Parker of American Airlines and Stephen Squeri of American Express.

Source : NDTV

Nearly three out of every four H-1B visa holders as of October 5 are Indian citizens, an official US report has said.

According to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), there were as many as 419,637 foreign nationals working in the US on H-1B visas as on October 5.

Of these, 309,986 are Indians, the USCIS said in its report ‘H-1B petitions by gender and country of birth fiscal year 2018’.

The report reveals a massive gender disparity – only one out of every four H-1B visa holders is female. Of the 419,637 H-1B visa holders, 106,096 (or 25.3 per cent) are females as against 311,997 (or 74.3 per cent males), it said.

Gender disparity is wider among Indians.

Of the 309,986 Indians on H-1B visas in the US this October, only 63,220 or 20.4 per cent are females while nearly 245,517 Indians on H-1B visas or 80 per cent (79.2 per cent to be precise) are males. As many as 1,249 Indians on H-1B visas have been characterised in the category of missing/others.

Indians, who account for 73.9 per cent of the total H-1B visa holders in the US, are followed by a distant Chinese with 47,172 on H-1B visas, accounting for 11.2 per cent of the total foreign nationals on this work visas.

But there is not much gender disparity among the Chinese on H-1B visas. According to the report, 21,342 or 45.2 per cent are females and 25,718 or 54.5 per cent are males.

After India and China, Canada and South Korea are the only two countries which account for a little over one per cent (1.1 per cent to be precise) each on H-1B visas.

After that all other countries constitute less than one per cent of the H-1B visas as of October 5.

The Philippines is the only country in top 10 H-1B visa holders wherein there are more females (1712 or 52.7 per cent) on H-1B visas than males (1519 or 46.7 per cent) on H-1B visas. As of October 5, as many as as 3,250 professionals from the Philippines were on H-1B visas.

The H-1B gender report was released days after the Trump administration came out with its unified fall agenda, in which it said that it plans to make changes in the definition of specialty occupation for the definition of H-1B visas and re-redefining the relationship between employees and employers.

The proposed regulations, it said, is aimed at attracting the best and the brightest from across the world, prevent the abuse of H-1B visas which is consentient with the hire American agenda of the Trump administration.

The USCIS is also proposing to introduce a pre-registration system for foreign students in the US. Technically it is possible that if 85,000 such students succeed in getting H-1B visas, no overseas applicants could apply.

Source : EconomicTimes