In a move that will benefit spouses of the large number of Indian techies working in the United States on H-1B visas, the Obama administration proposes to modify shortly some of the present regulations so as to allow spouses of the high-skilled foreign workers to work in the US.
Touted as a part of the USA’s new push to attract the world’s best and brightest talents, the move will fulfil a long-standing demand for work authorisation for the spouses. Owing to a host of stringent conditions, including work restrictions for spouses, many talented people are thought to be shunning America.
The White House announced on Monday that the Department of Homeland Security “will soon publish several proposed rules that will make the US more attractive to talented foreign entrepreneurs and other high-skill immigrants who will contribute substantially to the US economy, create jobs, and enhance American innovative competitiveness”.
“These proposed regulations include rules authorising employment for spouses of certain high-skill workers on H-1B visas, as well as enhancing opportunities for outstanding professors and researchers,” it said.
However, it is unlikely to be a blanket work approval for spouses of all H-1B visa holders, given that the statement speaks only of employment authorisation for spouses of “certain high-skill immigrants”.
The measures are said to build on other administrative efforts such as the launch of “Entrepreneur Pathways”, an online resource centre that gives immigrant entrepreneurs “an intuitive way to navigate opportunities to start and grow a business in the United States”.
The White House announcement came on a day when the US, as expected, ran out within a week its annual quota of 85,000 H-1B visas for the next American fiscal year, beginning October 1, 2014.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it has received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to reach the statutory cap for the 2015 fiscal year, including the 20,000 reserved for those with US Master’s or higher degrees.
The agency will run a random selection process from among the petitions received from April 1 to 7.
“A computer-generated process will randomly select the number of petitions needed to meet the caps of 65,000 visas for the general category and 20,000 under the advanced degree exemption,” the USCIS said, adding it will return filing fees of all those petitions that are not selected. The agency is still to determine a date for the random selection of petitions.
Over the years, Indian techies have been the predominant beneficiaries of the H-1B visa programme, accounting for more than 50 per cent of these visas. Indian IT giants with US subsidiaries such as Infosys, TCS and Wipro have garnered a large percentage of these visas, but have lately been subjected by the US Congress to closer scrutiny and higher visa fee in comparison to American firms.