Modi in US: How big change on H1-B visa renewal will benefit Indians in America?

The United States has announced it will introduce ‘in-country’ renewable H-1B visas. The development comes amid Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first state visit to the United States. A senior administration official, speaking ahead of the bilateral meeting between Modi and President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday, said this is part of the people-to-people initiative. But how will the big change help Indian workers? Let’s take a closer look: What is an H1-B visa? The much-sought-after H-1B Visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations – such as technology, finance, engineering, and architecture – which require theoretical or technical expertise.

According to Boundless.com, such workers usually have a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent.

Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China. According to Business Insider, though the visa is usually issued for three years, it can be extended up to six years. What is the H1-B renewal process? Until 2004, certain categories of non-immigrant visas, particularly the H-1B, could be renewed or stamped inside the US. But since then, for the renewal of these visas, in particular, those with H-1B visas, the foreign tech workers have to go out of the country, mostly to their own country to get the H-1B extension stamped on their passport. For all the H-1B visa holders, when their visa is renewed, they need to get their passports stamped with renewal dates. [caption id=“attachment_12338062” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] B-1 and B-2 visas are generally referred to as “B visas”, and they are the most common types of visa issued for a wide range of uses in the United States. AP[/caption] This is required if they wish to travel outside of the US and re-enter the US. As of now, H-1B visa restamping is not allowed within the US.

Restamping can only be done at any US consulate.

This was a big inconvenience for foreign guest workers and also for their employees, particularly at a time when the visa wait time is more than 800 days or more than two years. How will this help? According to Reuters, under the pilot programme being planned by the US, some Indian and other foreign workers on H-1B visas will be able to renew those visas within the country, without having to travel abroad. The programme may be expanded later. This will thus help thousands of Indian professionals staying in the US continue their jobs without the hassle of travelling overseas for the renewal of their work visas. As Shwetha Parekh, who stays in the US on an H-1B Visa told Business Insider. “The backlog was so much that when I tried to book an appointment in 2021, I was getting one only six months later. I wanted to come back home to meet my family but could not, as if I stepped out, I could not re-enter the US.”

Renewing these visas will thus become both easy and cost-effective, as per the outlet.

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Indian citizens are by far the most active users of the US H-1B program and made up 73 per cent of the nearly 442,000 H-1B workers in fiscal year 2022. Each year, the US government makes 65,000 H-1B visas available to companies seeking skilled foreign workers, along with an additional 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees. The companies using the most H-1B workers in recent years include the Indian-based Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services as well as Amazon, Alphabet and Meta in the US, according to US government data. “…the United States Department of State is going to launch a pilot to adjudicate domestic renewals of certain petition-based temporary work visas later this year, including for Indian nationals with the intent to implement this for an expanded pool of H-1 and L visa holders,” a senior Biden administration official said. “The pilot would begin with a small number of cases with the intention to scale the initiative over the following one to two years,” the spokesperson told Reuters while declining to define small. **‘Good for people in India’**US visas for Indians Over the past few months, the Biden administration has taken several steps to streamline the visa processing system and reduce inconveniences. The US last year issued 125,000 visas to Indian students, which is a record and they are on pace to become the largest foreign student community in the United States with a 20 per cent increase last year alone, the official explained. [caption id=“attachment_12309062” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Indian citizens are by far the most active users of the US H-1B program and made up 73 per cent of the nearly 442,000 H-1B workers in fiscal year 2022.[/caption] The programme would be eventually broadened to include other eligible categories.

“It is good for people in India, good for people in the United States, really good for our businesses,” said the official.

“We all recognise that mobility of our people is a huge asset to us,” said another US official. “And so our goal is to approach that in a sort of multifaceted way. The State Department already has been working very hard to find creative ways to make changes to things.” India has long had concerns with the difficulty its citizens face in receiving visas to live in the United States, including technology industry workers. More than 10 million jobs stood open in the United States at the end of April, according to the Labor Department. “The pilot would begin with a small number of cases with the intention to scale the initiative over the following one to two years,” the spokesperson said, while declining to define small. The pilot program would also include some workers with L-1 visas, which are available to people transferring within a company to a position in the US, one of the sources said. The ability for some of the temporary foreign workers to renew visas in the US would free up resources for visa interviews in consulates abroad, the spokesperson said. India has long had concerns with the difficulty its citizens face in receiving visas to live in the United States, including technology industry workers. More than 10 million jobs stood open in the United States at the end of April, according to the Labor Department. Some H-1B visa holders in the US have been among the thousands of tech workers laid off this year, sending them scrambling to find new employers within a 60-day “grace period” or return to their home country. The Biden administration has spent months working to improve visa access for Indians, trying to get around the lack of political will in Congress to comprehensively reform US immigration policy. President Joe Biden wants to knit together the world’s two largest democracies, partly in a bid to better compete with China. A separate initiative to clear a backlog of visa applications at US embassies in India is finally showing signs of progress, according to another one of those sources, and is expected to be figure into the discussions between the two countries’ delegations in Washington this week. US visa services are still attempting to clear a backlog after Washington halted almost all visa processing worldwide in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The visa backlog has led to some families being separated for extended periods of time, with some taking to social media to lament their situation. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.