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Indian IT Sector Warns Against US Visa Bill (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the meanwhile-in-India dept.

India's IT lobby warned on Tuesday that a bill before the U.S. Congress aimed at imposing tougher visa rules unfairly targets some of its members and will not solve a U.S. labor shortage in technology and engineering. From a report on Reuters: Industry lobby group Nasscom was responding to a bill introduced by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California, that would double the minimum salary required for holders of H-1B visas to $130,000 and determine how many of the visas were allocated, based on factors such as overall wages. India's $150 billion information technology sector, led by Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro, uses the H-1B visas to fly engineers and developers to service clients in the U.S., their biggest market, but opponents say they are using the visas to replace U.S. workers. Concerns about President Donald Trump's immigration policies were heightened by his ban on refugees on Friday. "The Lofgren Bill contains provisions that may prove challenging for the Indian IT sector and will also leave loopholes that will nullify the objective of saving American jobs," Nasscom said.

3 of 477 comments (clear)

  1. "Labor Shortage" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You speak of the "U.S. labor shortage" yet I look around and see American colleagues who are stuck in dead-end positions with no raises/promotions and struggling to find anything better, and then on the floor above me is at least a couple hundred H1-Bs in positions that could easily be filled by Americans who are looking.

  2. Why don't H1Bs simply build companies at home? by zerofoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Time and time again we hear how this technical talent simply doesn't exist here in the US and we need to go abroad to find it.

    If this is true, why don't these entrepreneurial and brilliant technologists build world-class companies and products in their home countries?

    Something tells me these H1B visa holders are neither entrepreneurial nor brilliant.

  3. Go 15% of Trump! [Re:No Sympathy] by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    stocked mostly with H1-Bs and owned and ran by Indian immigrants. The way that they abused the heck out of their own countrymen

    I worked with one visa worker who confided that he was paid only once every 6 months. He got his full amount, but had to budget carefully. I've seen other shady visa practices also.

    I don't like Trump and didn't vote for him, but on THIS issue he is right (perhaps accidentally).

    --
    Table-ized A.I.