The Trump’s policy of Buy American, Hire American to throw 500000 Indians back home

The Department of Homeland Security is considering new regulations that are going to prevent the extensions of H1 B visa. This new rule is under the gamut of the promise of President Trump of “Buy American, Hire American” policy.

If this gets applicable, India is the country to be affected by it adversely and it will witness approximately 5, 00,000 of its talent coming back to its land. Under the current law, the skilled workers get one three-year extension of their H1-B visa for a period of three years. If at the end of six years, their green card is not processed; their H1-B visa gets extended for an indefinite period till the green card application is processed.

The reality is that there is huge backlog of Green Card Applicants, especially for people from India and China. The skilled workers from these countries spend like 10-12 years easily which is period their Green card is getting processed. They are having at least a comfort that they have sufficient time in their hands in the US till they get their Green Cards processed.

Now the Trump administration is planning to end this infinite period and if any Green Card applicant does not get the permanent visa within the period of six years, he will have to return to his homeland.

Logically this step of Trump is correct. The H1-B visa was initiated to fill the gap of skilled workers in the country and not a route for immigration to the US. Over a period of time many individuals from many countries have used this H1-B route and have become permanent residents of the country. These include even the big names in US tech industries such as Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Sundar Pichai of Google. These names are the India-born head honchos who have added great value to US tech industry.

However, the words of President Trump was backed by some nativist American techies who stated that there is not dearth of tech minds in the US and there is no need to hire the talent from outside. Although H1-B visa is still and unabated fact as America does not produce the required tech graduates every year and hence it needs fresh talent from abroad.

If this change is applied, the most affected country will be India than any other country. From the 85000 H1-B visas issued every year, 50% of the aspirants are from India. Thousands of Indians in the US are waiting in the queue to get their Green Card application approved.

Although nothing is sure yet and there are discussion going on in the White House regarding the step. It is possible that the step is never applied and things remain as it is.