Many American firms are the major beneficiaries of the H-1B visas. Any restrictions on these visas may impact heavily on the US technology companies because many work permits are issued to Indians with a high skill set. Indian nationals receive two-thirds of the work permits as per the data of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. It is the authorized body to process the applications.
Heavy Impact
Indian companies use only a small share of the Indian nationals in the US. The global and the US multinationals sponsor a vast majority of them. NASSCOM also stated that If the US policy makes the hiring difficult for the advanced technology workers, the US companies will become weak. Presently they depend on Indian for filling up their skills gaps. As a result more jobs will be put to risk, and also create a big pressure for sending technology services abroad.
The US is considering actively capping H-1B work visas, for nations which force overseas companies, in storing data at the local level. Moreover, the external affairs said that the US did not talk about these measures for Indians.
Indian bodies in an active mode
The Reserve Bank of India issued orders to the International Payment Firms like Visa and MasterCard to store data at the local level. There is also a focus on Data Protection and E-commerce Policies, which request that critical user-personal data and customer data of all ecommerce firms must be stored locally.
The analysis of USCIS data and the US Centre for Immigration Studies stated that among the six Indian companies comprising Infosys, the Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, and HCL Technologies received 16%, (2,145 H-1B permits) last year that is lesser than 2,399 visas of Amazon.
Two-thirds of the visa extension requests of these firms were rejected in 2018. The US administration has enlarged the scope of scrutiny of visa applications of Indian companies.
What experts say
An expert said that putting a cap on the number of Indians, who can apply for professional posts, and obtain H-1B visas, will heavily impact the firms located in the US, apart from the Indian entities. In 2018, many Indian IT firms got many continuing approvals as well as extensions, which do not have an annual cap. Furthermore, the list of employers who receive initial approvals in favor of new H-1B employees has the domination of the US firms. There is no final say in this regard yet.
