US law makers non-committal on rethink of H-1B visa norms

US law makers visiting India refused to give any assurance to the country’s policy-makers on the fate of the three Bills introduced in the US Congress for tightening H-1B visa rules.

Instead, they pressed on the need for strengthening of Indian IP laws, a Commerce Ministry official has said.

“The group of law makers who met the Commerce Minister on Monday said the situation on foreign workers was still fluid in the country and Senators were yet to make up their mind on the issue,” the official said.

While the Minister stressed on the contributions that India’s IT industry makes to the US economy and how their businesses would be affected if more restrictions were put in place, the law makers remained non-committal.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also reportedly took up the issue of the additional restrictions on H-1B being planned that would limit the number of Indian IT workers in the country when he met the group of eight bipartisan legislators from the US.

Of the three Bills, two could hit IT companies such as Infosys, Wipro and TCS hard as they propose doubling the minimum wage rate for such visas to $1,30,000 from the present $60,000 and disallowing companies with more than 50 employees, of which at least half are H-1B or L-1 holders, from hiring additional H-1B employees.

With US President Donald Trump promising to take away jobs from foreign workers, New Delhi’s apprehensions of these Bills getting through are high.

The visiting law makers stressed that India needed to tighten its IP laws and extend more protection to patent holders. This is in line with the point the US always makes in all its meetings with India.

“While the two issues of IPR and H-1B visas were not linked, the US group expressed disappointment that India had not done anything significant to improve its patent protection rules in the past years,” the official said.

New Delhi replied that its IPR laws were in strict compliance with the WTO’s TRIPS agreement and its new IPR policy would make the process of granting of patents easier and faster.