US embassy forms council to resolve visa issues

BANGALORE: The US embassy in New Delhi has formed a council to discuss US visa problems that the Indian IT sector is facing, Som Mittal, president of IT industry body Nasscom, said on Thursday.

The council includes Indian industry representatives. Mittal said the officials in US consulates and immigration officials at the port of entry in the US were interpreting the visa conditions differently. This often leads to employees with valid visas being sent back from the port of entry.

“Going for 20 days on a B1 visa for a specialized installation can be paid for, according to one part of the US immigration setup. But another part interprets it differently. Similarly, for many years, if someone needed to go to the US for knowledge transfer (understand customer processes etc), a B1 visa would be granted. But no longer,” Mittal said.

The intensity of the visa problem has been growing for Indian industry. Infosys Technologies has received a subpoena from a federal grand jury in the US seeking information about the company’s use of B1 visas. This follows a lawsuit filed by one of its own project managers in the US, Jack Palmer, who accused the company of misusing B1 visas.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that two other Infosys managers in the US had also submitted internal whistleblower reports saying Indians on business visitor visas were performing longer-term work not authorized under B1 visas.

With US unemployment rates continuing to be stubbornly high, and the country heading into a presidential election next year, the visa problems are likely to continue unless the US embassy’s council initiative brings about some resolution.

Mittal said the UK had concerns similar to the US, but in its latest review of their visa regime, they had avoided putting a cap on intracompany transfers (transfers between an Indian company and its subsidiary in the UK). “The UK has recognized that it’s good for the country to have skilled people coming into the country through such transfers. They put a cap on almost every other visa category, barring this.”