Everyday you hear news of how it is becoming more and more difficult to enter the States. This trend is showing no signs of relief, thanks to the Trump govt.
The denial rate of H-1B visas has touched 24% in the third quarter of the current fiscal year, from 6% in FY2015. The rejection rate is recorded highest among the major Indian IT companies.
With the adjusted H-1B visa cap falling to 85,000 every year from 195,000 until 2004, as per the USCIS, denial rates for H-1B petitions increased from 6% in FY2015 to 24% in the first three quarters of FY2019 for new H-1B petitions for initial employment.
In an already difficult situation, the Donald Trump administration has decided to notch up the process of application and processing of the non-immigrant visa.
USCIS to Delay the Non-Immigrant Visa Process
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services has changed rules for application and processing of the non-immigrant visa. Initially, this whole process would start from early week of March and continue up to the second week of April.
As per the new rule, the USCIS will close the initial registration for H-1B visa on March 20 while applications will start from April 1. The new rules will not only increase the time taken to process a visa but will also increase the cost.
According to a New York-based immigration law firm Davies & Associates, these new rules will definitely delay the process of visa processing, as it will now extend from early March to at least the end of July.
How is the Delay Expected to Harm the Indian IT Sectors?
The Indian IT sector could face a delay in the grant of work visas. Under the current administration, Indian IT services companies have seen rejection rates of 24% in 2019 and with the changing process, the Indian IT firms will be more careful while filling their applications.
It is not false that the whole immigration process favors US technology companies over the Indian based companies in the US.
Speaking of this a little later, under the new H-1B visa rules, the cost of application for big companies employing at least 50 people in the United States, out of which more than 50% are in H-1B, L-1A or L-1B non-immigrant status, has gone up to $4000.
Apart from that, we had informed you just last month that all employers will have to pay a $10 fee registration fee for each applicant.
Petitioners are now required to electronically register each H-1B visa petition they want to submit. The system also requires employers to register in advance the names of employees who need a work permit.
Once this is done, USCIS will shortlist the registered candidates who can apply for the visa. This might further amplify the process the registrations and thus the delay.
US Most Partial with Indian Firms
The denial rate of H1B petition witnessed a massive downfall from Indian companies. Also, there is a massive mismatch in the number of H1B visa rejections for Indian based IT companies in the US, over American based ones. Data from USCIS show that the rate at which H1B visas are rejected is much higher for Indian IT firms than firms based out of the US.
The H1B visas for IT firms like Capgemini, Cognizant, Infosys and Deloitte is fashionably being mitigated while firms like Amazon, Google or Apple face no such difficulties in hiring Indian talent for the growth of their companies.
- Cognizant saw over 60% of applications for initial employment rejected in FY2019
- Capgemini followed with 55% application rejections
- Wipro with 53% rejections
- Infosys coming close with 45% of such rejections.
Companies that saw the least number of denials were Apple, Facebook, and Cummins, where only 2% of applications were rejected.
- Google : 3% rejection rate
- Walmart : 3% rejection rate
- Amazon: 6% rejection rate
- Mindtree: 5% rejection rate
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