During former President Donald Trump’s presidency, he signed an executive bill which would temporarily ban foreigners from gaining permanent citizenship in the United States of America. The reason he had made this decision was to protect American citizens from the pandemic during the time.
This negatively impacted millions of Indians living in the US, putting their citizenship on the bar and also negatively impacted those who wanted to migrate to the US during the time. However, the newly elected President of the USA, Joe Biden does not plan on doing the same.
Biden is planning on increasing the number of high-skilled visas, including the H-B1B, and will eliminate the limit on visas based on employment in the country which will benefit the large number of Indians who reside in the United States.
Biden is reversing the visa move which Trump had put into effect during his presidency. This means that anyone who resides in the US for a considerable amount of time and is an immigrant, wants to apply for citizenship can become a citizen of the United States.
Along with Kamala Harris as his deputy who is also of Indian origin, Biden plans on bringing the Indian citizens and Americans closer with sharing of culture, technology, innovation and skill.
This policy will also allow American companies to employ foreign workers in operations whee they feel lie they might require fellow countries expertise. India has always helped the US with IT and technical expertise. Each year, technology companies hire tens and thousands of employees from countries such as China, Japan, South Korea and India to help.
According to the policy document released by Biden regarding this rule, and cap or recent graduate students of PhD programme who are immigrants in the United States will be able to pursue their further subjects and work of interest without having to deal with the pressure of re-applying for a stay-visa or any such.
Biden believes that immigrants who come from other countries to study in the US can help benefit fellow students and future companies with shared expertise, knowledge and skill. It will also help the people of America embrace cultures and respect one another, giving a hope to end racism in the United States for good.
Biden stated that there is an imbalance in the economy due to racism and not accepting other cultures and sharing their expertise. This policy will mainly help to restore balance in the country.
The current system only allows a single family member to reside in the US on the visa. Biden is planning on abolishing this system to keep the family together. However, the current visa system has been so poorly designed that applications and installing the new system will e done in a timely fashion which will certainly benefit not one but many immigrants all over the world.
Along with family based immigration, Biden is also making sure that the current visa applications will be finalized and approved to ensure closeness among the immigrant families. The new policy also allows immigrant families to bring their minor children along with them to the United States.
Biden has always had a good relationship
with India. His long standing love and admiration for India is well known to the United States and to the world.
By Meena Atmakuri
