US resumes processing of premium H-1B visas

Washington: The United States has resumed fast processing of applications filed under H-1B work visa programme for some categories of applicants, five months after it was halted.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which handles immigration cases, said that it has resumed premium processing for all H-1B visa petitions that are subject to the fiscal year 2018 cap, which has been set at 65,000.

Earlier, the US administration temporarily suspended the 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.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. When a petitioner requests the agency's premium processing service, USCIS guarantees a 15-day processing time.

According to USCIS, "If the 15- calendar day processing time is not met, the agency will refund the petitioner's premium processing service fee and continue with expedited processing of the application".

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.