The proposed comprehensive immigration bill if passed by the Congress and signed into law by the US President would bar companies from hiring people on H-1B visa if 50 per cent of their employees are not Americans.
Two US lawmakers have asked nine foreign-based firms, including some leading Indian companies that used 20,000 of such visas, to disclose details about their workforce and their use of the special programme.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Cognizant and eight other major corporations have been questioned by US Senators for filing thousands of H-1B skilled labour visa petitions after conducting "mass layoffs" of American employees.
With the US facing a double digit unemployment rate, Senator Russ Feingold in a letter to Senators Richard Durbin and Byron Dorgan, who are drafting such a legislation urged them to include strong and effective Buy American and domestic sourcing requirement in this legislation.
Come mid-October, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is likely to acquiesce to more than two years of pushing by the Sikh-American community and United States lawmakers and finally create a special category for Sikh Americans in the agency's hate crime monitoring form.
According to Republican Senator Charles Grassley and Democratic Senator Richard Durbin, more companies are now using H-1B visas to displace qualified American workers.
Despite an over 50 per cent drop in the number of H1-B visas issued to some Indian IT firms in 2007 against 2006, US Democrat senators Richard J Durbin and Charles E Grassley have written to nine Indian companies that figure among the top 25 recipients of approved H-1B visa petitions in 2007 seeking detailed information on how they use the visa programme.
Two senators are probing how Indian outsourcing firms use U.S. work visas, with an eye on new restrictions.
Walt Disney staff were reportedly replaced with Indians holding H-1B.
A group of influential lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan legislation in the US Senate to comprehensively overhaul the H-1B and L-1 visa programmes and usher in more transparency in the recruitment of foreign workers. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.
H-1B visa reform bill introduced in US Senate
All companies that have 50% or more employees from outside the US to pay a higher visa fee of $10,000 for each such staffer, against $4,500 at present.
The US lawmakers, describing themselves as "longtime friends of India", wrote in the letter that "more than six months after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government unilaterally revoked the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, the government continues to block most internet in the region".
President Donald Trump talked to the Saudi King, during which the latter flatly denied having any knowledge of the missing journalist.
More than a year after he was nominated by President Barack Obama, the US Senate, defying the powerful pro-gun lobby National Rifle Association, voted to confirm Dr Vivek Hellegere Murthy as the first Indian American US Surgeon General and the youngest ever at age 37, in a cliff-hanger of a 51-43 vote.
Thirty-seven-year-old Indian-American physician Vivek Hallegere Murthy has been confirmed as the 19th surgeon general of America by the United States senate. He is youngest person and first person of Indian-origin to hold the post.
The debate over Prime Minister Modi's nixed Congressional address continues. Aziz Haniffa has the scoop
'India is no longer the India of the '70s and the '80s.' 'It's a large country with the fastest growing economy.' 'In working with India, you just can't go and humiliate the nation publicly.' USIBC President Mukesh Aghi tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com about how he advises American companies to do business with India, what he thinks of Modi's government and the way forward for the India-US relationship.
