KEY HIGHLIGHTS of H1B1 Visa
- Trump will sign an executive order to extend suspension of H-1B, H-4, L1 and J1 type extended till year end
- In April, Trump signed an initial 60-day ban on such visas which has been extended till the end of 2020
- Move to free up over 500,000 jobs in the US for locals in an election year
Washington DC: US President Donald Trump extended the suspension till the end of 2020, a host of work visas including the H-1B type H1B1 Visa, barring the entry of more than 525,000 high-skilled foreign workers into the United States.
“President Trump is focused on getting Americans back to work as quickly as possible,” a White House official told AFP, on condition of anonymity.
Visa categories which are subject to the freeze include H-4 (for H-1B spouses), L1 (used for intracompany transfers) and J1 type (used by doctors and researchers). However, healthcare workers, research related to coronavirus and farmers have been exempted from the visa ban.
The Trump administration, citing the pandemic moved ahead with its decision under the ‘America-first recovery’ effort in a bid to restrict the entry of foreign workers and freeing over half-a-million jobs for locals as the American economy stares at a recession in an election year.
Trump will sign an executive order, later Monday, to widen the initial 60-day freeze on new work permits for non-US citizens two months ago.
The US President, in April, signed an executive order to suspended issuing of such visas to foreign workers. The ban on foreign workers has been extended until the end of 2020.
Jolt to tech companies
H1B1 Visa are non-immigrant visas which allow US employers to depute foreign workers in speciality jobs that require technical or theoretical expertise. These are the most sought after visas, especially by Indian techies who wish to emigrate to the US and are used by tech giants to save labour costs.
A majority of such visas are used by tech giants such as Google and Microsoft and even Indian IT companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro to deploy engineers from India to the US.
The move comes as a jolt largely to the Indian Information Technology professionals as H1B1 Visa is used by them to work in the US.
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Source: ETNOWSNEWs.com
