Pune: Over 50 American tech firms including Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook filed a brief in a California court on Monday, supporting a lawsuit challenging the temporary ban on the entry of non-immigrant visa holders into the US. The companies said that the visa restrictions will hurt American business – rather than save American jobs, leading companies to hire workers outside the United States. The lawsuit has been filed by the US Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups.
The Trump administration had issued a presidential proclamation in June that suspends the entry of workers on an H-1B, L-1 and J-1 visas till the end of 2020 in a bid to preserve American jobs.
Indian nationals have been most impacted by this ban as the account for about 70% of all H-1B visas issued. However, in the last few years, the number of H-1B visas allotted to US tech firms has been significantly higher than Indian services companies. In 2019, seven of the top ten recipients of H-1B visas were US companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Facebook. Other companies that are a part of this filing include Adobe, Github and Intel.
There are concerns that this visa suspension will infact result in more jobs moving outside the country, both nearshore to Canada and Mexico, as well as to countries like India. Several of these companies already have large centres in India, and experts said that the inability to move skilled talent from India could result in the jobs shifting to India.
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Since the proclamation in June, there have been several lawsuits filed by different industry bodies and states challenging the visa ban on the grounds that there is a shortage of high skill talent in the US which was being filled by temporary workers coming from outside. This, they argue, could lead to a drop in innovation in the US.
The Trump administration had issued a presidential proclamation in June that suspends the entry of workers on an H-1B, L-1 and J-1 visas till the end of 2020 in a bid to preserve American jobs.
Indian nationals have been most impacted by this ban as the account for about 70% of all H-1B visas issued. However, in the last few years, the number of H-1B visas allotted to US tech firms has been significantly higher than Indian services companies. In 2019, seven of the top ten recipients of H-1B visas were US companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Facebook. Other companies that are a part of this filing include Adobe, Github and Intel.
There are concerns that this visa suspension will infact result in more jobs moving outside the country, both nearshore to Canada and Mexico, as well as to countries like India. Several of these companies already have large centres in India, and experts said that the inability to move skilled talent from India could result in the jobs shifting to India.
(Join our ETNRI WhatsApp channel for all the latest updates)
Since the proclamation in June, there have been several lawsuits filed by different industry bodies and states challenging the visa ban on the grounds that there is a shortage of high skill talent in the US which was being filled by temporary workers coming from outside. This, they argue, could lead to a drop in innovation in the US.
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