US Congressional committee gives mandate to a bill that increases minimum salary of H-1B visa holders

NewsBharati    16-Nov-2017
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Washington, November 16: The United States key Congressional committee on Wednesday voted to pass a legislation that proposes to increase the minimum salary of H-1B visa holders from 60 thousand to 90 thousand US Dollars and imposes a number of restriction on the work visa popular among IT professionals from India. Notably, the Indians residing in the United States gets a major relief with this move while the ones who are preparing to visit US on H1B visas are going to face many difficulties due to the number of restrictions.

 

A key Congressional committee has voted and given a full mandate to “The Protect and Grow American Jobs Act (HR 170)” bill in the House Judiciary Committee that proposes to increase the minimum salary of H-1B visa holders from 60 thousand to 90 thousand US Dollars and also imposes a number of restriction on the work visa popular among IT professionals from India.

Now, the bill needs to be passed by the Senate before it can be sent to the White House for the US President Donald Trump to be signed into law. Till then another copy of the bill will now head to the full House for necessary action.

Let's understand the norms of the bill:

The Protect and Grow American Jobs Act (HR 170)” bill firstly prohibits H-1B dependent employers from replacing American workers with H-1B employees.

The bill also lengthens the no-layoff policy for H-1B dependent employers and their client companies for as long an H-1B employee works at the company, which means they cannot layoff equivalent US workers.

For H-1B dependent employers to be exempted from the requirement that the United States workers be recruited first, however, the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act dramatically increases the salary requirements for H-1B workers.

BACKGROUND: 

Earlier, at the end of October month this year, the Trump administration has already tightened the renewal of non-immigrant visas such as H-1B and L1 mainly popular among IT professionals. Also, in the month of April this year, President Trump signed an executive which ordered federal agencies to the rules for technology companies seeking to bring highly skilled foreign workers to America. However, this step was taken by President Trump to carry out his campaign “America First” for bringing more jobs to his countrymen.

The order signed by Trump mainly targeted the H-1B visa programme. The executive order which was signed by President Trump is on the basis of “Buy American, Hire American” in Kenosha, Wisconsin, initiating visa and government purchase reforms. Premium processing of H-1B visa was suspended in April to handle huge rush of new petitions which was the biggest blow for Indians.

Later, the United States resumed the premium processing of H-1B visa with the revised and tightened rules. Following developments came after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj mentioned the visa issue with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson when the two leaders met in New York.

Interestingly, after winning the elections, the then President-elect Trump said, “We will have two simple rules when it comes to this massive rebuilding effort, buy American and hire American.” During his campaign trail also Trump vowed that “the American people will come first once again.”