Visa lifeline for IT: US H-1B premium visa processing is back on the rails

After almost six months, there comes some relief for Indian techies who want to fly to the US on work visas. The US has resumed fast processing of H-1B work visas in all categories subject to Congress-mandated limit, Mint reported.

Earlier, the US administration temporarily suspended visa issuance to handle the huge rush of applications for the work visas which are popular among Indian IT professionals.

Back in June, US Labour Secretary Alexander Acosta called for increasing minimum salaries of foreign workers on H-1B visas from the existing $60,000 to at least $80,000.

"Congress has not updated that $60,000 threshold over time. If Congress were to update that simply for inflation, it would bring it up to well over $80,000, and many, if not most of the situations like you have identified would be eliminated because they would be below that $60,000 threshold," Acosta told members of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labour, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) resumed premium processing on Monday for all H-1B visa petitions subject to the fiscal year 2018 cap of 65,000, Mint reported, quoting a media release.

Premium processing has also been resumed for the annual 20,000 additional petitions which are set aside to hire workers with US higher educational degrees, the USCIS release said.

After Donald Trump came to power as president of the United States, his narratives like 'Buy American, Hire American' have led to a decline in the number of Indians entering the US. The number of Indians in the US who are currently searching for jobs in India has surged 10 times between December 2016 and March 2017, according to research firm Deloitte.

The technology companies depend on H-1B visas to hire tens of thousands of employees each year.

Indian IT companies like HCL, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Cognizant, Wipro and Infosys send thousands of workers to the US every year, mostly due to low labour costs. This crackdown has led to an uncertain future for engineers working in the US and potential aspirants hoping to make it to that country.

While visiting India, last month, Cisco Executive Chairman John Chambers said taking people from India to the US on work visas to take advantage of lower labour arbitrage may be a mistake.

"You can't go in and take a whole bunch of H-1B visas and displace American workers for a lower cost. That is just a mistake. The jobs which are being created have to be created in both countries. It is not a win-lose (situation); both the countries can have dramatic job creation by working together," Chambers said.

"Premium processing remains temporarily suspended for all other H-1B petitions, such as extensions of stay," the USCIS said, adding that it plans to resume premium processing for all other remaining H-1B petitions not subject to the fiscal 2018 cap, as agency workloads permit.

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.