You may have to wait for an H-1B visa

NEW DELHI: Don’t pin your hopes on the US Congress if you are hoping for an increase in the number of temporary highly skilled worker (H-1B)visas. With the November elections coming up, and the conservatives pushing against amnesty for illegal aliens, chances are that the comprehensive immigration reform bill will not make it.

Even if it does, it will be largely an enforcement bill, either way the Senate bill increasing the number of H-1B visas and employment based green cards will lapse. It would seem that the immigration reforms bill passed by the US Senate will have a tough time getting to a congruence committee, where it will have to be reconciled with the House bill.

To begin with, the US Senate conservatives have been raising objections to the Senate bill on the grounds that it includes tax provisions, which, according to the US Constitution, must originate in the House. Experts say that an analysis of the voting on the Senate bill reveals a clearly partisan line of voting.

The fact is that the conservatives would rather go with the House bill, which is an enforcement bill, rather than include amnesty provisions for illegal aliens. For the H-1B and employment based green card provisions, the situation is akin to that of being trapped between the rock and hard place.

Much of the debate on the bill centres on the illegal aliens, who number anywhere between 11-15m. Sanjay Puri of USINPAC, a lobbying organisation says, “Indians are really not that concerned about provisions for illegal aliens, there would be at best 2-3m illegal aliens who are Indians.

The number is insignificant. What concerns us is the provisions for legal immigrants, and temporary skilled workers.” Immigration experts say that given the November elections, a border security bill is what will emerge from the Congress, in such a case, the dreams of increased H-1B visas and green cards would have to be abandoned for the time being.