TechNet executives are meeting with senior Obama Administration officials and an array of bipartisan Congressional leaders to advocate for a robust innovation policy agenda.
After a promising start in the Senate, a plan to nearly double the quota for H-1B visas for foreign workers has run into trouble in the United States Congress.
India on Tuesday conveyed its concerns to the US on issues like H-1B visa fee hike, export control restrictions and outsourcing ban during a meeting between External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and his counterpart Hillary Clinton in New York.
Jaishankar said India will try to find common ground on trade issues during discussions with Pompeo.
Refuting the allegations of United States lawmakers and certain quarters here that H-1B visas take away jobs from Americans, Nasdaq's chief has claimed that studies show that for every H-1B visa, technology companies increase employment by five workers.
In President Donald Trump's big priority bill, there is a proposal for a 5 percent excise tax on remittance transfers that would cover more than 40 million people, including those holding green cards and H1B visas.
Norman Matloff, professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis, believes that the US has enough highly skilled engineers and raising the cap on H-1B would hamper the wages of senior workers already in the industry.
'Brazil, China, Colombia and India each had more than 2,000 of their citizens overstaying student/exchange visas, with India having the highest number (7,000).'
Applications for H-1B visas totalled a record 233,000 for fiscal 2016, according to figures released recently.
Canada and Mexico emerge as preferred destinations to service clients in the US; east Europe and Nordic nations are favoured alternatives
IT services major Infosys on Thursday reported 11.46 per cent increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 6,806 crore for December quarter FY25 and raised its guidance on the back of growth in financial services and manufacturing. The company had logged a profit of Rs 6,106 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
In addition, for those applying for certain L-1A and L-1B must submit an additional $4,500.
Nearly three months after the US immigration agency started accepting petitions for the H-1B visas for highly-skilled foreign professionals, it is still looking for more than 20,000 applications to fill the Congressionally-mandated cap of 65,000.
USIBC is pulling together a similar advocacy team like what they did during the US-India civil nuclear initiative.
Some American lawmakers and organisations want to torpedo the H-1B visa program.
The new Grassley-Durbin bill would weaken the economy. Here's how to let the H-1B visa program strengthen the US instead.
Even as the proposed H-1B visa curbs and possible elimination of this programme by the United States Congress is on the cards, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said in Washington on Wednesday that there's absolutely nothing India can do about it because it's a sovereign prerogative of the US.
As federal officers raid alleged abusers, tech employers worry they'll run short of skilled foreign workers, especially in stimulus sectors.
Indian IT companies can take a breather as the US Senate vote for imposing stringent conditions on the hiring of H-1B visa workers.
Export-led Indian IT sector is not directly hit by Trump's tariff order on goods, but there could be worrisome indirect bearings on it arising out of possible slowdown in decision-making and GDP growth in America over higher tariffs, which may then cloud demand from specific verticals, according to some analysts.
Primarily meant for computers and information technology professionals, the H-1B visas have been one of the most sought after for foreign professionals in previous years. The US Citizenship and Immigration Service has been receiving several times the number of the allocated quota. However, this year, the USCIS is struggling to fill up the 65,000 H-1B visas as mandated by the US Congress.
US immigration authorities, in the past four years, have increased denial of work-related visas, with India-born professionals being refused at higher rates than nationals of other countries, an American think tank said in a report on Friday.
Eighteen American information technology professionals have filed a civil lawsuit against its former employer, Cognizant, for replacing them with people from India who were hired by the IT major on H-1B visas.
A top American Senator, who visited New Delhi earlier this month, vowed to look into the "disproportionate number" of H-1B visa being denied from India, amid concerns over the increase in certain categories of visa fees.
'...he keeps his campaign promises, does what he said he will do which led to his huge victory.'
Frist hoped that the bill would clear the full Senate this week, or before Congress heads for a two-week Easter recess.
Posing a series of questions to the prime minister, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh also asked if Modi would convey to the US president that India would send its own aircraft -- like Venezuela and Colombia did -- to bring back Indian deportees in the future.
The United States has said outsourcing to India was 'unavoidable' and that it was actively considering increasing the H1B visas for Indian workers.
The US move comes in the midst of protests by India that the increase incorporated in the Border Security Bill is discriminatory against Indian companies and needed to be amended.
The US move to reduce the number of H1B visas to 65,000 from 195,000 will affect the Indian information technology industry in the long run, Kiran Karnik
Several Indians who arrived with an H-1B visa at Newark and John F Kennedy airports were deported based on a new rule, immigration attorneys and activists have reported. The new rule stipulates that those who arrive on a work visa should 'arrive at the place of work'.
As the United States plans to reduce the number of H1-B visas to 65,000 from 195,000, India's apex body National Association of Software and Service Companies sought to cap it between 120,000 and 130,000
The H-1B visas coveted by highly-skilled professionals mainly from India appear to be losing its sheen thanks to the economic downturn in the US when for the first time in years there were fewer takers even one week after authorities began accepting applications.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services would accept petitions for the H-1B work visas on the first five working days beginning April 1.
The move will have a major impact on Indian women as they are the major beneficiary of the Obama-era rule.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association, which had earlier opposed the measure, described it on Friday as 'disappointing'. It argued that this would prove to be counterproductive as it prevents the US companies to hire the best available global talent. The H-1B has mostly benefitted Indian techies.
The government has asked for a 60-day pause in the case to 'allow incoming leadership personnel adequate time to consider the issues'.
The Republican Study Committee of the House of Representatives, in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, appealed to them to take up the legislation and pass it in the next few months. The panel called for an increase in the number of H-1B visas from the current 65,000 to 115,000 and for 20 per cent built-in annual increase.
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