The US on Mondaystarted accepting applications for H-1B visas, considered as the most sought-after work visa among highly skilled Indian professionals, amidst unprecedented scrutiny by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services , which is the federal agency responsible to process the visas, started accepting applications for H-1B visas for the fiscal year 2019, beginning October 1.<\/p>\n
The USCIS had earlier indicated that there will be zero tolerance by it for even minor errors.<\/p>\n
As of now, the USCIS has not indicated if it plans to go for a computerised draw of lots as has been the case in previous years after receiving several times more than the Congressional mandated cap of H-1B visas.<\/p>\n
A leading advocacy group representing the tech industry including Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s Facebook said it expects number of H-1B petitions to reach the Congressional mandated caps in coming days. As a result of which the USCIS would again resort to a computerised draw of lot to determine successful applicants, it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin a few days we expect that the H-1B visa lottery will reach the annual cap, as it has for the past six years, highlighting the overwhelming demand for this visa category,\u201d FWD.us president Todd Schulte said.<\/p>\n
The H1B 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.<\/p>\n
The H1-B visa has an annual numerical limit cap of 65,000 visas each fiscal year as mandated by the Congress. The first 20,000 petitions filed on behalf of beneficiaries with a US master\u2019s degree or higher are exempt from the cap.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many ways in which our immigration system is broken and in need of comprehensive reform; fixing our legal and high-skilled immigration system, including protecting the H-4 rule and eliminating country caps for green cards, will ensure the US can maintain our global competitive advantage,\u201d Schultz said.<\/p>\n
Observing that immigration has always been a source of strength for America\u2019s economy, Schultz said H-1B visa is a \u201ckey part of the high-skilled immigration\u201d system that needs to be reformed to allow the United States to remain the centre for global innovation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should make it easier for the best and brightest to come from around the world while also cracking down on bad actors,\u201d Schultz said, voicing his concern over the recent move to tighten the H-1B application approval process.<\/p>\n
\u201cH-1B visa holders create jobs and raise wages for native-born Americans by bringing their ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit to the science, engineering, and tech sectors, creating American jobs and benefiting thousands of businesses and countless communities across the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cReforming and expanding high-skilled immigration is an important part of a broader fight to protect legal immigration avenues,\u201d Schultz said.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the H-1B visa filing process, the USCIS had said this work visa should help US companies recruit highly-skilled foreign nationals when there is a shortage of qualified workers in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US on Mondaystarted accepting applications for H-1B visas, considered as the most sought-after work visa among highly skilled Indian professionals, amidst unprecedented scrutiny by the Trump administration. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services , which is the federal agency responsible to process the visas, started accepting applications for H-1B visas for the fiscal year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26780,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26778\/revisions\/26780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}