The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) would start accepting new H1-B visa petitions for the fiscal year 2020 starting April 1, the media reported.

The employment start date for these visas would be October 1, the American Bazaar daily reported on Monday.

Like previous years, the regular visa cap limit for H-1B this year remains at 65,000.

Additionally, another 20,000 petitioners, who possess a Master’s, or a higher degree from a US university, will also get the visas.

But, according to many lawyers, this year may be extraordinary, mostly because of the continued scrutiny as well as some subtle rule changes announced earlier this year.

In January, the USCIS introduced a change in the order in which allocations would be counted.

The agency will now put all the petitions including the ones with advanced degree in the regular cap. In the second round, it will select the remaining petitions. The new order is expected to increase chances of petitioners with a US Master’s degree.

According to the USCIS, the new change would result in an estimated 16 per cent rise, or an increase of 5,340 workers, in the selected H1-B petitioners with an advanced US degree.

Florida-based paralegal Vishal Ghadia, told the American Bazaar: “In the last six years, USCIS has received enough H1-B applications to fill the 85,000 cap within the first five working days of the month of April. This time, too, we can expect the cap to reach within five days and the number of H1-B applications similar to last few years.”

However, some lawyers have said that that an apparent crackdown on H-1B and the overall negative sentiment around immigration would reflect on the filings.

Prominent immigration attorney Sheela Murthy told the American Bazaar: “We expect fewer H-1B filings since many employers are frustrated with the system and the administration that has its head in the sand regarding the shortage of high-skilled workers to keep up the momentum of our economy.”

Meanwhile, Kansas City-based attorney Rekha Sharma-Crawford said that due to “the administration working overtime to limit all immigration, there is an uncertainty to the H-1B season this year”.

A legislation seeking to prohibit the Trump administration from revoking the work authorisation of spouses of H1-B visa holders, which include Indians, has been introduced in the US Congress by two lawmakers who said that eliminating this benefit would force many foreign workers to use their talents to compete against American businesses. 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. The move by lawmakers Anna G Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren to introduce the H-4 Employment Protection Act, comes amidst determination by the Trump administration to revoke an Obama-era rule that extends work authorisation to the spouses of H-1B visa holders.

Since the rule was implemented, over 100,000 workers, mainly women, that too from India have received employment authorisation, improving the US’ competitiveness and lessening the economic burden on thousands of H-1B workers and their families, the two lawmakers said after introducing the bill in the House.

The H-4 Employment Protection Act prohibits the Trump administration from revoking this important rule, which it is expected to do by the end of the year, they said. “Protecting work authorization for these H-4 visa holders is a matter of both economic fairness and family unity,” Eshoo said.

“Eliminating this benefit would create a painful choice for many immigrants to either split up their families or return to their home countries and use their talents to compete against American businesses,” Eshoo said.

“These are American citizens-in-waiting, stuck in line for their number to come up,” Congressman Lofgren said.

“Prohibiting H-1B dependent spouses from working is of no benefit to our country, and if allowed to move forward, many of these families that can contribute so much to our workforce will simply move to countries with a more sensible approach to immigration. This much needed bill will block the Trump administration from needlessly harming our economy and the lives of skilled immigrant families,” Lofgren said.

Washington The Donald Trump administration wants to make changes in the existing H-1B provisions for it to play a better role in attracting highly skilled foreign workers as opposed to the what it has now evolved into an “outsourcing” role, the White House said Thursday.

“The president’s overall instinct, and he said this publicly a number of times, he wants to find ways to make sure that people who graduate in a highly skilled area like technology stay in the country. He finds that a very positive part of the overall immigration,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Coordination Chris Liddell told a Washington audience on Thursday.

During the Washington Post’s live discussion on new technology, when asked about the president’s thoughts on H1B immigration, Liddell said, “He (Trump) has talked about merit immigration, clearly that (H-1B) fits in merit immigration.”

At the same time, he acknowledged that legislatively, the issue might get caught up in a border discussion.

A former executive at Microsoft and General Motors, Liddell is tasked with overseeing and coordinating President Trump’s policy process.

“To the extent that we can from a regulatory point of view rather than a legislative point of view, because the H-1B system to a large extent is governed by legislation — but to the extent that we can modify the regulatory point of view to promote it to be more highly skilled as opposed to outsourcing roles, there’s 1,20,000 H-1Bs. So it’s quite a big pool,” the White House official said.

“Traditionally, unfortunately they have gone to lower-skilled outsourcing types of jobs,” Liddell said.

The Trump administration, he said, would love to find ways to change that as more people are coming out with PhDs in the tech sector.

“So the president is 100 per cent aligned with that. We’ll try and do it as much as we can by regulatory; if it can be done legislatively as well in some way that would as part of a merit-based system, that would be fantastic,” Liddell said.

The top White House official emphasised that there is need to carry on reforms in H-1B to keep more talented graduates in this country.
This is an incredibly constructive part of the immigration debate, which, unfortunately doesn’t get a lot of focus, he said.

Liddell said President Trump has repeatedly spoken about merit-based reform as part of the immigration platform. The Silicon Valley and the tech industry should welcome that as a concept, he said.

“Relatively, as a country, a very small proportion of the people who come in as legal immigrants do it on a merit-based system relative to any other country I know, he said.

“So promoting the concept of merit-based immigration, which clearly would be at least partially orientated towards the tech sector, I would think that there should be a high degree of alignment on,” Liddell said.

A 46-year-old Indian-American has been arrested and charged in California on charges of H-1B visa fraud.

Kishore Kumar Kavuru was arrested Friday morning and produced before the US Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen. He was later released on bond.

Kavuru has been charged with 10 counts of visa fraud and as many counts of mail fraud in connection with a scheme to maintain a pool of foreign workers for the clients of his consulting companies.

The accused faces 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of USD 250,000 for each count of visa fraud and up to 20 years of imprisonment for each count of mail fraud.

Since 2007, Kavuru was the owner and chief executive officer of four consulting companies. He is accused of submitting fraudulent documents to both the Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security, containing details of bogus work projects awaiting the foreign workers.

Because many of the applications were ultimately approved, the Indian-American had a pool of unemployed H-1B beneficiaries that were immediately available for legitimate work projects, giving him a competitive advantage over other staffing companies that followed the sometimes-lengthy visa-application process, federal prosecutors said.

As part of the scheme, Kavuru required some prospective workers to pay thousands of dollars in cash before he would prepare and submit the visa applications. He also required some workers to wait unpaid, sometimes for months, to be placed at an end-client’s workplace, the Department of Justice said in a statement.

Through his consulting companies, Kavuru submitted and mailed approximately 43 petitions for H-1B software engineers. “In fact, there were no software engineer positions available at the benefits company,” federal prosecutors added.

The Trump administration’s “inconsistent” immigration policies, including on the H1-B visa for professionals, could “disrupt” operations of American firms and inflict “substantial harm” on their competitiveness, CEOs from top US companies have warned.

In a letter to US Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, members of the Business Roundtable, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Indra Nooyi, President and CEO of Mastercard Ajay Banga and Chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems Chuck Robbins said that confusion around US immigration policy “creates anxiety for employees who follow the law.”

The Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of America’s leading companies, told Nielsen yesterday that “inconsistent government action and uncertainty undermines economic growth and American competitiveness.”

Due to a shortage of green cards for workers, many employees find themselves stuck in an immigration process lasting more than a decade, they said.

To avoid unnecessary costs and complications for American businesses, the US government should not change the rules in the middle of the process, the CEOs said, pointing out to the several policy memoranda over the past year by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has issued that has resulted in “arbitrary and inconsistent adjudications”.

“Companies now do not know whether a work visa petition that was approved last month will be approved when the company submits the identical application to extend the employee’s status,” they said.

In particular, the CEOs said they are worried about changes to the review process for H-1B visas for high-skilled workers, expected changes to the rules for spouses of H-1B employees and planned changes to certain deportation rules.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.

Employees who qualify for H-1B jobs often hold degrees in science, tech, engineering or math, and are highly sought after by employers, the CEOs said.

The Roundtable members said that a confusing immigration system in the US which threatens to split their families apart, could encourage them to seek employment in a different country. That would put the American economy at a disadvantage.

They also noted that in many cases, the US Labor Department has determined that “no qualified US workers are available to do that person’s job.”

President Donald Trump has said that some IT companies were abusing the US work visas to deny jobs to American workers.

“As the federal government undertakes its legitimate review of immigration rules, it must avoid making changes that disrupt the lives of thousands of law-abiding and skilled employees, and that inflict substantial harm on US competitiveness,” the CEOs noted.

The Business Roundtable will continue to work with Congress to reduce the Green Card backlog, they said.

In the interim, inconsistent immigration policies are unfair and discourage talented and highly skilled individuals from pursuing career opportunities in the United States, they said.

The reality is that few will move their family and settle in a new country if, at any time and without notice, the government can force their immediate departure-often without explanation.

“At a time when the number of job vacancies are reaching historic highs due to labour shortages, now is not the time restrict access to talent,” the CEOs said.

The group has called for increasing the number of H-1B visas and letting people with advanced STEM degrees from American universities qualify for a green card immediately.

Meanwhile, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a statement the “administration has been relentlessly pursuing necessary immigration reforms that move towards a merit-based system.”

“USCIS is committed to reforming employment based immigrant and non-immigrant immigration programs so they benefit the American people to the greatest extent possible,” CNN quoted spokesperson Michael Bars as saying.

More than 5,000 complaints of H-1b visa fraud and abuse have been received by a federal agency on a dedicated email helpline that was launched by the Trump administration last year, an official said. “As of May 21, 2018, the USCIS has received over 5,000 tips to the dedicated H-1B email address,” Philip Smith, a Spokesperson for the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) told PTI. After US President Donald Trump Signed “Buy American, Hire American” executive order last year, Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS) established email addresses dedicated to receiving information about suspected H-1B and H-2B fraud or abuse. FDNS leads USCIS’s efforts to combat immigration benefit fraud. Anyone (including both American workers and workers who suspect they or others may be the victim of H-1B or H-2B fraud or abuse) can email ReportH1BAbuse@uscis.dhs.gov or ReportH2BAbuse@uscis.dhs.gov to submit tips, alleged violations, and other relevant information about potential fraud or abuse, Smith said.

The USCIS, however, did not provide any other details with regard to the nature of complaints, the companies involved and which country’s high-tech professionals were the victims of H-1B visa fraud and abuse. “Pursuant to the Buy American, Hire American Executive Order, FDNS has helped the agency investigate the H-1B program to protect American workers,” Smith said. In April 2017, USCIS FDNS created and implemented the Targeted Site Visit and Verification Program (TSVVP) as part of its continuous efforts to enhance the integrity of the immigration benefit process, he said. “This targeted approach focuses on H-1B dependent employers (those who have a high ratio of H-1B workers as compared to US workers, as defined by statute); Cases that we cannot validate the employer’s basic business information through commercially available data; and employers petitioning for H-1B workers who work off-site at another company or organization’s location,” Smith said in response to a question.

FDNS officers resolve background check information and other concerns that surface during the processing of immigration benefit applications and petitions. Resolution often requires communication with law enforcement or intelligence agencies to make sure that the information is relevant to the applicant or petitioner at hand and, if so, whether the information would have an impact on eligibility for the benefit. FDNS officers also perform checks of USCIS databases and public information, as well as other administrative inquiries, to verify information provided on, and in support of, applications and petitions. Smith said administrative inquiries may include targeted site visits – Inquiries conducted in cases where fraud is suspected. FDNS uses the Fraud Detection and National Security Data System (FDNS-DS) to identify fraud and track potential patterns, he said.

The USCIS has formed a partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in which FDNS pursues administrative inquiries into most application and petition fraud, while ICE conducts criminal investigations into major fraud conspiracies, he said. According to the USCIS, the H-1B visa program should help US companies recruit highly-skilled foreign nationals when there is a shortage of qualified workers in the country. “Yet, too many American workers who are as qualified, willing, and deserving to work in these fields have been ignored or unfairly disadvantaged,” the USCIS says on its webpage. Employers who abuse H-1B visa program may negatively affect US workers, decreasing wages and opportunities as they import more workers from abroad, it said. Highly popular among Indian technology professional, the H-1B visa is normally issued for three years and renewed for another three years. The US Congress has a cap of 65,000 H-1B visas per year. It also issues another 20,000 H-1B visas to those who have masters and higher education from a US academic institute.

Top seven Indian IT companies experienced a whopping 43 per cent drop in their H-1B visa approvals between 2015 and 2017, a US think-tank has said.

The National Foundation for American Policy in a report said that the 8,468 new H-1B visas for Indian-based companies in the finanacial year 2017 equaled only 0.006 per cent of the 160 million in the US labour force.

The top seven Indian-based companies received only 8,468 approved H-1B petitions for initial employment in FY 2017, a decline of 43 per cent for these companies since FY 2015, when it received 14,792 H-1B visas.

Given that 199,000 applications were filed in FY 2017 for the FY 2018 cap year – 105,000 in excess of the FY 2018 H-1B annual limit – even if none of these companies received new H-1B visas the annual limit still would have been reached on the first day of the April filing period, it said.

“The data indicate the problem is not which companies are receiving H-1B visas, which some contend, but that the 85,000-annual limit is too low for an economy the size of the United States,” it argued.

Based on the H-1B visa data obtained from the US Citizenship and immigration Services (USCIS), the foundation said that the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) received 2,312 H-1B visas in 2017 as against 4,674 in 2015, registering a drop of 51 per cent.

In a move that is likely to hit Indian IT firms and their employees, the Trump administration has announced a new measure that makes it tougher to issue H-1B visas to those to be employed at one or more third-party worksites.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a policy memorandum on Thursday saying it may request detailed documentation to ensure that a legitimate employer-employee relationship is maintained while an employee is working at a third-party worksite.

The H-1B programme offers temporary US visas that allow companies to hire highly skilled foreign professionals working in areas with shortages of qualified American workers.

Indians get most of the H1-B visas, although there are no national quotas for the facility nor is it specifically designed for Indians.

Under the new policy, the USCIS says the employers must provide contracts and itineraries for employees who will work at a third-party location.

According to the guidance, in order for an H-1B petition involving a third-party work site to be approved, the petitioner must show by a preponderance of evidence that the beneficiary will be employed in a speciality occupation and the employer will maintain an employer-employee relationship with the beneficiary for the duration of the requested validity period.

“When H-1B beneficiaries are placed at third-party worksites, petitioners must demonstrate that they have specific and non-speculative qualifying assignments in a specialty occupation for that beneficiary for the entire time requested on the petition,” the official statement said.

“While an H-1B petition may be approved for up to three years, the USCIS will, in its discretion, generally limit the approval period to the length of time demonstrated that the beneficiary will be placed in non-speculative work and during which the petitioner will maintain the requisite employer-employee relationship,” it said.

The updated policy guidance aligns with President Donald Trump’s “Buy American and Hire American” Executive Order and the directive to protect the interests of US workers.

According to the US administration officials, the scrutiny is needed to ensure the integrity of the controversial visa programme, which critics say has cost American jobs.