Washington (SunstarTV Bureau): President Joe Biden on Thursday allowed a 2020 on H1-B visas banning the issuance of new non-immigrant worker visas expire on March 31.
Meanwhile, the White House did not make it an official announcement on the suspension expiration, as Biden traveled to Pittsburgh on Wednesday to unveil his $ 2 trillion American jobs – massive eight year infrastructure plan.
In June last year ex-President Donald Trump had suspended the visas for foreign workers, ostensibly to protect American jobs, reeling under the impact of the Covid pandemic. However, visas for intra company transfers (L1), exchange visitors (J1), temporary non-agricultural workers (H-2B) and dependants of H1-B holders (H4) were also impacted by the expiring ban.
After the banning, Google CEO Sundar Pichai had tweeted, “Immigration has contributed immensely to America’s economic success, making it a global leader in tech, and also Google the company it is today. We’ll continue to stand with immigrants and work to expand opportunity for all,”
On a yearly basis, the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) get a total of 85,000 such visa applications. At the very top of the list of H1-B visa holders in the US are Indians. In the fiscal 2017, the total number of beneficiaries was 276,423.
In view of initial employment, a number of 67,815 Indian workers were monitored in the fiscal year of 2017. As many as 208,608 Indians continued their employment in 2017. Indians account for 73.9 percent out of the total number of H1-B visa holders in the US.
Notably, the H1-B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.
