The United States on Thursday announced that the H-1B visa will give priority to immigrants as per their skills and salary instead of the current lottery procedures after the modification is completed.
The amendment is focused to protect the economic interests of the US workers while ensuring the most highly skilled foreign workers benefit from the temporary employment programme. The final rule for the visa selection is set to be established in the federal register on January 8.
Many American companies, mostly in the tech world, depend on specialised skilled workers mainly from South Asian countries like India and China. Here is where the H-1B visa comes into play as it allows the corporations to hire foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. These companies hire tens of thousands of employees every year.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said that the modification in the visa application will incentivise employers to offer higher salaries, and/or petition for higher-skilled positions, and establish a more certain path for businesses to achieve personnel needs and remain globally competitive.
"The H-1B temporary visa programme has been exploited and abused by employers primarily seeking to fill entry-level positions and reduce overall business costs," said USCIS Deputy Director for Policy Joseph Edlow.
The USCIS in one year can issue a maximum of 65,000 H-1B visas. It can also issue another 20,000 H-1B visas to those foreign students who have completed higher studies from a US university in STEM subjects, as per Congressional-mandated cap.
"The current H-1B random selection process makes it difficult for businesses to plan their hiring fails to leverage the programme to compete for the best and brightest international workforce and has predominantly resulted in the annual influx of foreign labour placed in low-wage positions at the expense of US workers," he said.
"It will be implemented for both the H-1B regular cap and the H-1B advanced degree exemption, but it will not change the order of selection between the two as established by the H-1B registration final rule," USCIS said.
"The Department of Homeland Security had previously published a notice of proposed rulemaking on November 2, 2020. It carefully considered the public comments received before deciding to publish the proposed regulations as a final rule," USCIS said.
The changes in this final rule will apply to all registrations, including those for the advanced degree exemption, submitted on or after the effective date of the final rule.
