Two US Senators had introduced a law in Senate and had also proposed to bring down the H-1B visa numbers by 15,000 and also decided that this visa would be offered to the top most wage earners first.
The law was presented by the Senators Bill Nelson and Jeff Sessions. According to Nelson, by cutting down the visa numbers which are available every year and offering those visas to the top most wage earner first, the bill would directly aim at outsourcing firms that depend on fewer wage overseas workers to replace the equally competent US workers.
Presently each year around 85,000 H-1B visas could be granted, and that includes 20,000 for those individuals who had finished their higher education in (STEM) related streams like technology, science, maths and engineering.
The most favorable job visa had been offered to many Indian IT professionals since many years. This bill plans to minimize the visa numbers by 15,000. It will also required Homeland Security Department to prioritize distribution of 70,000 H-1B visa for overseas employees based on their income.
According to Nelson, this step would assist in ensuring that H-1B visa program is being used as it was previously intended for attracting the overseas workers with high specialized skills that is not found among US workforce.
The previous month, Nelson and other Senate colleagues had filed a separate portion of law to change H-1B visa program. According to the media report, it will prevent the employer from replacing the US employee with the H-1B visa holder.
It will also need the employers to show the evidence that they initially tried to hire the US workers before hiring the H-1B visa holder or bar the firms that hire over 50 individuals from employing any extra H-1B employees if over 50% of their workers are already H-1B visa holders. -it added.
The H-1B visa is nonimmigrant visa that permits US firms to hire overseas employees in specialty occupations that need technical or theoretical expertise in the specialized fields.
