Proposing changes in H-1B visa application, US awards visa to most skilled foreign workers; know how!

NewsBharati    03-Dec-2018
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Washington, December 3: Proposing major changes in the H-1B visa application process, the Trump Administration on Friday aimed at awarding the visa to the most skilled and highest paid foreign workers. So if you are meritorious or already studied in the US, you will have more chanced of getting a H1B visa to work in the country. Department of Homeland Security has been open to public comment on the proposed rule can submitted starting December 3, and on or before January 2.

 

The US administration led by President Donald Trump has proposed major changes to the H-1B application process. These include a new rule requiring companies to electronically register their petitions in advance. The proposal is aimed at awarding this popular American work visa to the most skilled and highest paid foreign workers.

So what exactly this new H-1B visa include:

· Addressing an official notice, it said companies employing foreign workers on the H-1B visa - under the Congressional mandated annual caps would first have to electronically register with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) during a designated registration period.

· The H1-B visa has a numerical limit cap of 65,000 visas each fiscal year. This cap is mandated by the US Congress. Out of these, the first 20,000 petitions filed on behalf of beneficiaries with a US master's degree or higher are exempt from the cap.

· The proposed rule will introduce a more meritorious selection of beneficiaries, said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said.

· The DHS asserted that currently, in years when the H-1B cap and the advanced degree exemption are both reached within the first five days that H-1B cap petitions may be filed, the advanced degree exemption is selected prior to the H-1B cap. The proposed rule would reverse the selection order and count all registrations or petitions towards the number projected as needed to reach the H-1B cap first.

· The proposed change would increase the chances that beneficiaries with a master's or higher degree from a US institution of higher education would be selected under the H-1B cap and that H-1B visas would be awarded to the most-skilled and highest-paid beneficiaries.

· Once a sufficient number of registrations or petitions have been selected for the H-1B cap, the USCIS would then select registrations or petitions towards the advanced degree exemption.

· The proposed process would result in an estimated increase of up to 16% in the number of selected H-1B beneficiaries with a master's degree or higher from a US institution of higher education, the DHS said.

· The proposed rule would "help reduce wait times for cap selection notifications. The proposed rule also limits the filing of H-1B cap-subject petitions to the beneficiary named on the original selected registration, which would protect the integrity of this registration system."

The H1B visa is very popular among Indian IT companies and professionals. H1B visa is a non-immigrant visa, which allows the US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Technology companies largely depend on H1B visa hire thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.