PM Modi in the US: The Biden administration will reportedly make it easier for Indians to live and work in the US. The State Department is expected to announce as soon as Thursday that a small number of Indians and other foreign workers on H-1B visas will be able to renew the visas without travelling abroad, as part of a pilot programme.
An US official said that the State Department already has been working very hard to find creative ways to make changes to things, as per a report in news agency Reuters. “We all recognise that mobility of our people is a huge asset to us,” said the person in the know.
The State Department spokesperson has declined to comment on the types of visa that would qualify for the timing of the pilot launch. The spokesperson said that the pilot programme would begin with a small number of cases with the intention to scale it over the next couple of years.
The steps could change, said the report, but are yet to be finalised.
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The report added that the pilot programme would include some workers with L-1 visas, available to people transferring with a company to a position in the US.
The US government makes 65,000 H-1B visas available to companies seeking skilled foreign workers, along with 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees. These visas are valid for three years and can be renewed for another three.
Meanwhile, Indians are the most active users of the H-1B programme with 73 per cent of nearly 442,000 H-1B holders in fiscal year 2022. India-based companies such as Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services are some of the companies using the most H-1B workers, along with the likes of Amazon, Google, and Meta.
India had raised concerns about the difficulty Indians have been facing in receiving visas to live in the US. The US visa services had halted almost all visa processing worldwide in March 2020 due to the pandemic.
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