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Mahesh

28/08/25 10:21 AM IST

H-1B visa changes

In News 
  • United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called the popular H-1B visa program a “scam”, saying that American businesses should be focused on hiring American workers instead of foreigners.
H-1B Visa Program
  • The H-1B visa program allows American employers to hire immigrant workers in occupations that require “a high level of skill” and “at least a bachelor’s degree”, according to the US Department of Labour.
  • The program was started in 1990, with the intention of helping “employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the US workforce by authorising the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorised to work in the United States”.
  • An H-1B visa can be issued for a maximum of six years at a stretch, after which the visa holder has to either leave the US for a period of at least 12 months before returning, or apply for and receive permanent residence (“Green Card”).
  • Currently, there is an annual numerical limit (regular cap) of 65,000 new statuses/ visas under this program each fiscal year, with an extra 20,000 visas available to those with a master’s degree or higher from a US university.
  • However, not all H-1B petitions are subject to the annual cap. The number of petitions approved by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, a part of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is thus far higher than the annual cap.
  • Notably, petitions for “continuing employment” do not fall under the cap. In the fiscal year 2023, for instance, USCIS approved 118,948 petitions for initial employment, and 267,370 petitions for continuing employment — taking the total number of approved petitions that year to 3,86,318.
  • Those seeking employment at higher education institutions or nonprofit entities affiliated to such institutions, nonprofit research organisations, or government research organisations are also eligible to be exempted from the cap.
Indians & H-1B 
  • People born in India are the largest beneficiaries of the H-1B program. Data from the US government show that Indians account for more than 70% of all H-1B petitions approved each year since 2015. People born in China come a distant second, hovering at the 12-13% mark since 2018.
  • It is this dominance of Indians that has caught the attention of nativist MAGA Republicans who argue that Indians coming to the US to work in the tech industry are “stealing” American jobs and depressing wages.
  • Central to this argument is the claim that the H-1B program, meant to attract top talent from around the world to the US, is misused by tech corporations to staff their low-to-mid level workforce for lesser pay than what Americans would demand.
  • When proponents of the H-1B program like Musk argue that “there is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent” critics hear that as them saying “Americans are too expensive to hire”.
Source- Indian Express 

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