Remember role of Indian techies, docs while reviewing H1B visa regime, India tells Trump

The role of high-skilled professionals from India in responding to the COVID-19 crisis in the United States must be taken into account in any review of the H1B visa policy, New Delhi has conveyed to President Donald Trump’s administration in Washington D.C.

New Delhi stressed during its recent engagements with the Trump Administration that the high-skilled professionals from India played a key role in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis in the US and they included doctors and nurses taking care of the patients in the hospital and the tech workers developing solutions for the companies responding to the pandemic as well as the lockdown enforced to contain it.

“We hope the review of non-immigration visas by the US Government will take into account the long term benefits of H1B visa for US competitiveness and not affect provision of essential services at this critical hour,” Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said.

The COVID-19 crisis ravaged the economy and resulted in a large number of people losing jobs in the US. The Indian Information Technology (IT) and healthcare professionals in the US are worried over the possibility of renewed focus on the Trump Administration’s “America First” policy and further tightening of the H1B visa regimes.

“There is some anxiety among our people and industry about restrictions on the H1B visa as part of the US Administration’s review of its non-immigrant visa regime,” Shringla noted while addressing the leaders of the NASSCOM – a trade association of Indian IT and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry. He recalled that when Trump had visited Ahmedabad and New Delhi in February this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taken up the issue with him.

“The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. and the attendant impact on the U.S. economy has led to a change in the situation. We need to adopt a realistic yet effective approach,” said the Foreign Secretary.

He said that New Delhi’s approach had been to work at the diplomatic level and deal with each specific issue one at a time. “We were able to intervene early on in our lockdown with the US Government on the issue of temporary relief for H1B visa holders whose visas were expiring in this period, on a case-by-case basis.”

New Delhi conveyed to the Trump Administration that the economic and trade linkages were a strong pillar of India-US strategic partnership, particularly in technology and innovation domains and the high-skilled Indian professionals working in the US through H1B and related non-immigrant visa regimes bridged the crucial skill gap and provide technological and competitive edge to the US companies.

Shringla cited a study by the National Foundation for American Policy, which reported that the unemployment rate for workers employed in Computer Occupations in the US was actually lower last month than it was in January.