Nearly 2 lakh H-1B visa holders could lose legal status by June

New Delhi : Out of 250,000 guest workers who are trying to get a green card in the US, 200,000 are H-1B visa holders-who could lose their legal status by the end of June, reported Bloomberg quoting Jeremy Neufeld, an immigration policy analyst with the Washington DC.

H-1B visa holders are linked to a specific location and a company who hired the visa holder and is responsible for paying a specific amount to the employee.

About three-quarters of H-1B holders are working in the technology industry, and the number varies every year. Neufeld added that thousands more who are not seeking resident status may also be forced to return home.

In the last two months, millions of Americans have lost their jobs but workers on visas are more susceptible than the native-born workers. Reducing their wages or making them work from home violates visa requirements.

Terminated H-1B workers have some option like 60-days to find another job, transfer to a different visa or return to their country. But now they are in a dilemma as they can't even get their visas renewed during the COVID-19 crisis.

Bloomberg quoted Doug Rand, who worked on technology and immigration policy as saying, "The visa crisis is causing a catastrophe at a human level and an economic level."

"H-1B workers often have families who also rely on their jobs for authorization to stay in the country, including children who may have spent their entire lives in the US.

It's just a mess." A letter sent by TechNet, a lobbying group whose members include Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft to the State and Homeland Security departments on April 17, has called for relief for foreign-born workers as the letter requested a delay in work authorization expiration dates until at least September 10.

"Without action, these issues will lead to hundreds of thousands of unfilled jobs and have profound negative economic effects," the letter reads