On October 6, 2020, the US Government announced a policy change in the H1B visa rules that were altered over the past six months. The new changes are being termed as an interim final rule that aims at strengthening the non-immigrant work visa programme.
By an interim final rule, the US refers to executive policies declared by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that give the stakeholders in the policy a consultation period of 60 days in which feedback is collected before making permanent changes to the policy.
Justifying the new interim rule, the Department of Homeland Security has stated that the H1 B visa has gone far beyond the reason that it was implemented for and it has often affected the employment of US workers. Therefore, the DHS has introduced the new interim rule to tighten the regulations of H1 B visa, allowing only qualified and certified petitioners to avail the H1 B visa. Though the exact criteria of the new interim rule are still not defined, the rule will aim to change the definition of specialty occupations in the US.
The rule will tend to give preference to US workers over immigrant workers. This is a step towards giving preference to the domestic pool of employable workforce to combat unemployment in the US that has risen during the pandemic. With the new rule, employers will struggle to justify hiring immigrant workers and influencing immigration into the states.
The second provision of the new interim rule deals with the suspected fake employee profiles created by US employers to make up the quota of H1B visa applications. The rule change comes in the heels of allegations that both Indian and Us companies employ fictitious foreign employees to circumvent the US taxation policy and cut the job share of US employees.
The third provision in the H1B visa rule talks about the inclusion of workspace inspection and compliance monitoring before, as well as after, the granting of H1B visa. Before the pandemic, US administration used to issue 85,000 H1 B visas every year. Every year Indians and Indian companies used to claim majority of the H1B visas. The change in the definition of specialty occupation will change the number of 65,000 Specialty H1 B visas that were previously issued in the last year.
While IT companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro have reduced their dependence on the H1B visas since some years ago, the new regulations in the H1B visa regime will take a toll on the hiring of Indian and foreign nationals for work in US branches. The companies will have to hire local US talent or pay more money to H1 B visa holders. The H1 B new interim rule will affect not only Indian multinational companies, but also other global business chains .
The new regulations will put a check on the existing H1 B visa rules that had allowed many Chinese and Indians to be employed in the States and also to their visas by changing employers. The H1 B visa rules had been gravely criticized by the people of America because immigrant workers were taking up their share of employment and jobs.
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