American lawmakers are now considering revised guidelines for H-1B visas, used to bring foreign workers to the United States to fill high-skilled jobs, and a crucial component of the business of Indian outsourcing firms like Infosys, Wipro and TCS. The new proposal asks for the minimum salary of those on H-1B visas to be doubled to $130,000 a year and makes it difficult for tech giants to hire foreign workers, including Indians, over Americans. IT stocks fell up to 9 per cent today, with the top 5 Indian IT firms losing Rs 50,000 crore in market value. President Donald Trump is also expected to sign this week new rules that would make it much tougher for Indian firms to avail of H-1B visas.
Here is your 10-point guide to this big story:
1) President Donald Trump's executive order is part of a larger "immigration reform effort", his aides have said, to make it tougher for foreign workers to get H-1B visas. Within 90 days of the signing of the executive order (expected this week), the government would review all regulations that allow foreign nationals to work in the US and determine which of those regulations violate immigration laws or are not in the national interest of America.
2) Under the new rules proposed by Mr Trump, tech giants would have to show that they tried to prioritize hiring American citizens. If they hire foreign employees, it would have to be for more senior and expensive positions than is currently the norm.
3) "Our country's immigration policies should be designed and implemented to serve, first and foremost, the US national interest," Mr Trump's draft proposal reads, according to a copy reviewed by Bloomberg. "Visa programs for foreign workers ... should be administered in a manner that protects the civil rights of American workers and current lawful residents, and that prioritizes the protection of American workers - our forgotten working people - and the jobs they hold."
4) H-1B visas are intended for foreign nationals in "specialty" occupations that generally require higher education in fields and are given to professionals like scientists, engineers or computer programmers. The government awards 65,000 every year.
5) More than 60 percent of the US employees of Infosys are H-1B holders, and the company in its annual report has cited an increase in visa costs as among factors that could hurt its profitability.
6) Spouses of those on H-1B visas would not have the right to work in the US under the new rules.
7) H-1B visas were meant to help companies hire from abroad if they couldn't recruit suitable local talent. But the program has been misused, say critics, to hire cheaper foreign workers, depriving Americans of jobs.
8) The majority of the visas are awarded to outsourcing firms, sparking criticism by skeptics that say those firms use the visas to fill lower-level information technology jobs- depriving Americans of jobs, says the Trump administration.
9) Critics also say the lottery system benefits outsourcing firms that flood the system with mass applications.
10) Some lawsuits by American workers have alleged that they were asked to asked to train H-1B holders to do their jobs before being laid off themselves.
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