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Trump administration's immigration rules hurting American dream of Indian techies: Report 

WION Web Team
New DelhiUpdated: Jun 05, 2019, 05:15 PM IST
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Image for representation. Photograph:(Zee News Network)

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Critics attribute the lower rate of approvals to the Trump administration's aggressive policy to clamp down on the work visa programme, however, the new immigration policies have made it harder even for tech companies to bring highly skilled workers to the US.

There has been a sharp decline in the number of H1-B visas given last year, according to the latest report of US citizenship and immigration services. The H1-B or work visa is highly popular among skilled Indian IT professionals.

Critics attribute the lower rate of approvals to the Trump administration's aggressive policy to clamp down on the work visa programme, however, the new immigration policies have made it harder even for tech companies to bring highly skilled workers to the US.

The US immigration services approved a total of three lakhs thirty-five thousand H1-B visas, which included renewals. This was ten per cent less from nearly three lakhs seventy-four thousand approvals in 2017. The approval rate of H1-B has declined from 93 per cent in 2017 to 85 per cent in 2018.

According to previous reports of US Citizenship & immigration services, Indians account for nearly seventy-four per cent of H1-B visa holders for two consecutive years in 2016 and 2017. The recent decline will sharply cut short the American dream of Indian techies.

The H1-B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows us companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. In 2017-18 70 per cent of H1-B visas were allocated to Indian applicants as per US authorities

For all the political attention it’s getting, it’s notable that the H1-B programme is actually very small. It's annual new and continuing approvals account for just 0.2 per cent of the total US workforce of one hundred and sixty million.