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Trump Further Tightening H1B Visa Rules to Protect American Jobs

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to prevent H1B visa holders from extending their stay in the country until they obtain a green card, as part of a broader goal of protecting American jobs.

If implemented, the initiative will likely hurt Indian outsourcing firms severely. Newspapers in India are estimating that as many as 500,000 technology workers will have to return home.

Nasscom, India’s IT services body, has warned that such a move could weaken American prospects as well, saying that the country’s skilled talent pool holds the key to success for the technology sector.

The proposal, being drafted by Department of Homeland Security heads, is part of President Donald Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” initiative promised during his 2016 campaign, according to The Miami Herald.

Each year, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services grants roughly 85,000 H1B visas, which are issued for up to six years. Once expired, visa holders that have applied for green cards routinely seek extensions under the American Competitiveness Act.

President Trump has long been threatening to tweak work visa rules, saying he wants US firms to hire Americans as their preference. Soon after his presidential inauguration, he signed the “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, directing federal agencies to come up with new rules and issue guidance to overhaul the immigration system.

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Under his administration, H1B visa petitions are receiving more intense scrutiny, with outsourcing firms often complaining that officials were issuing costly and time-consuming challenges to the applicants.

“The idea is to create a sort of ‘self- deportation’ of hundreds of thousands of Indian tech workers in the United States to open up those jobs for Americans,” reported the Miami Herald, quoting an unnamed homeland security official.

Narayan Ammachchi

News Editor for Nearshore Americas, Narayan Ammachchi is a career journalist with a decade of experience in politics and international business. He works out of his base in the Indian Silicon City of Bangalore.

7 comments

  • GREAT! 500,000 jobs RECOVERED for Americans!

    I never expected Trump to follow through – but I am OVERJOYED that he is!

    There are 95 million working-age people in America without jobs. The “5%” unemployment number is a lie told by the Obozo administration to cover the fact that it was ruining America. Even those “employed” are often only working part time. That’s because under Obozo, companies were encouraged to take one full-time job, split it in two and have two part-time jobs at lower cost (no benefits). All of the jobs “created” under Obozo were of this type – 2 part-time jobs for 1 full-time job. The number of non-farm hours worked hasn’t changed since 2007, but there are 20 million more Americans in the work place. That means that each worker is getting a much smaller piece of the “pie”, and many are going hungry.

    America’s first duty is to Americans. The the extent that makes life harder for Indians – too damned bad!

  • The “85,000 H-1B visas” is also a lie. The AVERAGE number of H-1B visas issued for each year going back more than a decade, is closer to 200,000. The total number of foreign work visas is about 600,000.

  • Very good move by the United States of America . Time to deport selfish Indians and will be a good lesson to the selfish IT and non IT Indian companies who are depriving Americans of their jobs inspite of making huge profits out of the country. Americans should be giving first preference in their own country.

  • This is a good move to stop the flow of technology and innovation out of the US, and thus reduce the trade deficit.

    Too long US tech companies have been allowed to recklessly offshore technology and intellectual property to suppress the wages of the middle class while hurting the US ability to innovate and lead in the long term.

  • So amusing to read comments from few former Desis, who now lick the behinds of their Gora Saab and spit venom on such forums about their mother land and countrymen. These same snakes were begging to their masters for their Green Cards and later sweet talking for their citizenship.

    Now having received it, their rotten mind finds it fit to spout hatred about the same system, which they used and abused before to land and secure their “Pichwada” in the foreign land. Here they go barking on the same countrymen, whose ancestors once sheltered their ancestors. Who perhaps were brethren not so long ago…. Alas!

    India has always been a blessed land with such callous filth populating it. What these “Desis” fail to understand with their pea sized brain, is the fact that they will always be seen as “Kaali Chamadi”.

    Respect the nation which provided you shelter, food and education. Respect your countrymen. When SHTF, you are bound to beg and run back to this same generous gorgeous land and populace, which you so despise now.

    Grow up!