WASHINGTON,
A top congressional committee today voted for passing a legislation that proposed an increase in the minimum salary of the H-1B Visa Holders from the present 60,000 USD to 90,000 USD and it imposes several restrictions on this work visa that is popular among Indian IT professionals.
The Protect and Grow American Jobs Act (HR 170) – introduced by the Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet Subcommittee Chairman Darrell Issa, was passed by the House Judiciary Committee during a markup hearing today morning. It is now passed on to the full house for further necessary action.
For this bill to be passed on to the US president, Donald Trump, the senate need to first pass a similar version of this bill for it to be signed and made into a law.
But the sharp difference between the White house and the Democratic and Republican Lawmakers, on the topic of Immigration and its various aspects, including the H-1B Visa, the clear passage of this bill to becoming a law seems a distant task.
This bill prohibits the H-1B dependent employers from replacing American workers with H-1B employees. There are no longer any such exceptions. It also has in place a no layoff policy for H-1B dependent employers and their client companies, so far an H-1B employee works at the company, Which means that an equivalent US worker cannot be laid off.
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The H-1B dependent employers are to be exempted from the previous requirement of recruiting a US worker first. The protect and Grow American Jobs Act has dramatically increased the salary requirements of H-1B workers.
The bill states that they must pay the lower of 135,000 USD, which is subjected to inflation, or an average wage for that occupation in the area. With a lower slab of $90,000, as reported in the house judiciary committee’s media release.
In defense of the Bill, Congressman Issa said that “it is the responsibility of the lawmakers to ensure that H-1B is not exploited by those who are misusing it to outsource jobs for cheap and in the process undercut the American workers.”
He further added, that “Unfortunately, a handful of companies have exploited this provision by crowding out the employers who need limited slots available to bring in the brightest and most talented people from around the world.”
“The Protect and Grow American Jobs Act is a common-sense update that will go a long way to protecting American workers while helping companies have better access to the talent they need to grow their businesses and create new jobs here in America,” Issa said.
Congressman Bon Goodlatte said that Unfortunately, the currently H-1B visa programme stands in conflict with the nations as well as the American worker’s interest. And in order to protect the Average American worker and curtail the abuse of the system, these reforms are much needed.
NASSCOM strongly disagrees with the US lawmakers.
The NASSCOM president Chandrashekhar said- “Unfortunately, this legislation is being driven by myths, not reality. US government data show very significant shortages of high skill talent around the country. The data show that the high skill visa programmes are not a major cause of US unemployment, and IT specialists working on temporary visas are not cheap labour”
According to the US Bureau of Labour and Statistics, across their country, about 20 million people lose their jobs every year. These are not necessarily linked to hiring H-1B employees.
Also, The annual number of H-1Bs granted to the top IT service companies related to India in 2016 was a very minor fraction of the US workforce.
Chandrashekhar also argued that according to the Pew research center based on fiscal 2016 data from USCIS, for the top 8 India centric IT service companies, the average salary for the H-1B visas was even higher that the median salary for US citizens in Similar computer related or mathematical jobs. So it does not prove the cheap labour point.
The employers who use this H-1B visa provisions are already highly scrutinized and the NASSCOM member companies abide by all its laws and rules.
He finally said that NASSCOM continues to support every effort of the government to root out any fraud or abuse in the H-1B system. Quiet simply, our members also deserve the same treatment as their American or European counterparts.
