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A Republican lawmaker has introduced a sweeping measure successful the US House of Representatives, seeking to overhaul the H-1B visa programme, proposing tougher hiring requirements, higher wage thresholds and restrictions that could importantly impact Indian exertion professionals.This measure stands retired from a fewer others that person been lately introduced to repeal oregon betterment the H-1B program. The astir arguable proviso is simply a connection that requires H-1B applicants to support a residence overseas with ‘no volition of abandoning it’.According to migration experts, this terminology eliminates the long-standing ‘dual intent’ model that allows H-1B holders to prosecute imperishable residency (green card) portion moving successful the United States.“The applicable takeaway is simple: the accepted H-1B to greenish paper pathway would go arguably impossible, nether the bill, arsenic it is presently drafted,” said an migrant adept attached to a planetary conglomerate.A caller argumentation memo, pushing foreigners to process greenish paper applications from their location state – via consular processing alternatively than done accommodation of presumption (AOS) from wrong the US, besides recognised the dual intent of H-1B visas.
TOI had reported connected May 24 that this memo did not abolish AOS for holders of dual-intent visas specified arsenic H-1B and L visas. Instead, it created a much discretionary adjudication model nether which officers whitethorn necessitate specified applicants to show wherefore they merit accommodation of presumption from wrong the US.However, the billtitled the ‘American White-Collar Worker Jobs Act of 2026’, introduced by Texas Congressman Chip Roy, abolishes this dual intent.
“For astir 4 decades, the H-1B visa programme has been abused, allowing employers to routinely sideline American STEM workers successful favour of inexpensive overseas labour portion masking layoffs and wage suppression arsenic labour shortages. It is clip to extremity this lottery-based pipeline and regenerate it with a strategy that prioritises merit, enforces meaningful wage standards, and puts American white-collar workers first,” Roy said successful his statement.The measure would besides necessitate employers to wage H-1B workers either the existent wage paid to likewise qualified employees oregon a wage determined by the Department of Labor astatine the 75th percentile for that concern and location, whichever is higher. In addition, employers seeking to prosecute H-1B workers would person to certify that qualified US workers are unavailable, advertise jobs connected a government-run platform, and connection positions to arsenic oregon better-qualified American candidates earlier sponsoring a overseas worker.The connection would headdress the stock of non-immigrant workers astatine 5% of a company's US workforce and prohibit employers from laying disconnected US workers successful the aforesaid occupation classification wrong 1 twelvemonth of filing an H-1B application.The measure besides seeks to trim the maximum H-1B duration from six years to 2 years and would allocate visas based connected wage levels alternatively than done the existent lottery system.India is by acold the largest beneficiary of the H-1B programme, accounting for the overwhelming bulk of approved applications successful caller years. According to the latest information from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Indian nationals remained the ascendant beneficiaries of the H-1B programme successful FY 2024, accounting for 2.83 lakh of the astir 4 lakh approved caller visas (or 71% of the total). Further, with much than 12.6 lakh Indians, including dependants, waiting successful employment-based greenish paper categories, the bill, if passed could quash the American dream.However, with Republicans and Democrats sharply divided implicit migration policy, the measure is apt to look a challenging legislative way and whitethorn not beryllium enacted, authorities migration experts.
