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H1B Visa: Donald Trump Administration Wants Only Highly Skilled Foreign Workers, No Outsourcing

Chris Liddell says bringing H1B visa policy reforms is important to retain talented graduates

The United States President Donald Trump led administration is reportedly looking forward to renewing the existing H1B visa provisions to ensure employment of only highly skilled foreign workers in the country instead of the lower-skilled outsourced workers, the White House said last week.

Notably, the US government is planning to tweak the definition of specialty occupations and the definition of employment under the H1B work visa category, which is quite popular among Indian companies. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is likely to come up with the new proposal by January 2019.

According to Chris Liddell, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Coordination, the President is looking out for ways to make sure that people who graduate in a highly skilled area like technology are the only foreign workers who stay in the country.

“He finds that a very positive part of the overall immigration,” Liddell said.

When asked about Trump’s thoughts on H1B immigration, Liddell said, “He (Trump) has talked about merit immigration, clearly that (H-1B) fits in merit immigration.”

He also acknowledged that the issue might get caught up in a broader future discussion legislatively. Liddell added that the current government is finding out more ways to restrict the inflow of low-skilled outsourced workers, which currently numbers to 1,20,000 H-1Bs.

“So the president is 100 percent aligned with that,” Liddell said. “We’ll try and do it as much as we can by regulatory; if it can be done legislatively as well in some way that would as part of a merit-based system that would be fantastic.”

He also explained that bringing H1B visa policy reforms is very crucial to keep more talented graduates in this country.

In related news, a coalition of American employers representing big  IT companies including Facebook, Google and Microsoft has alleged that the US immigration agency was acting outside of its own regulations by holding back a large number of H-1B visas.

Caroline Finnegan

A professionnal journalist for the past ten years, I cover global news and economic affairs for The Chief Observer.

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7 Comments

  1. Its high time we stop Outsourcing before it is too ( too …. ) late. There are thousands of American Universities producing top class software engineers we do not need outsourcing companies.

    We ( past administrations ) let these Outsourcing companies collude with corporate america to transfer thousands of IT US Jobs OUT of US borders past 25 years ( all at the cost of American workers) How many stories we have VERIZON, Cisco, google, Facebook, Disney IT, University of CA San Francisco, Edison Gas company.

      1. Hi Venkat: US will stop selling is products in other countries only of residents of those other countries unite together and stop buying US manufactured / branded / labelled products!!!

    1. USA has been taken advantage by these OUT-sourcing companies of for a very long time. We invited them as GUEST worker to complement ( NOT replace our workers ) our workers on temporary basis during Y2K. For 25 YEARS Outsourcing companies kept playing SAME stereotype saying they cant find enough in US —- THis is 100 % LIE. 200 % LIE. Inlast 25 years US has produced more than enough IT skills available . TCS Infosys Wipro tech Mahindra MINDTREE HCL Tech Zensar KPIT L T Infotech COGNIZANT Persistent Mhpasis ACCENTURE CAP GEMINI brought in CHEAP labor and wooh started a REPLACEMENT program. There are so many US college, US university, , bright IT graduates available to work in US. Every IT US worker has been on dis-advantage bcaz these Outsourcing companies are focus on CHEAP, LOW Level , Temporary, Foreign imported worker ( and ofcourse transferring jobs OUT OF US BORDERS mostly INDIAN CITIES ). so that they can pay less salary. Many cases these Outsourcing companies Business Analyst or a Software Engineer is working as Program manager or Project manager at the end – client location. How come ?

  2. This is BS. I got my visa denied for a full-time data scientist position with a US company and have a master’s degree from one of the top universities in USA.

    1. Yes its all BS Mr BS, 95% of US educated Indians trying to get job in IT have FAKE resume, I have seen lot of entry level graduates from India cooking up at least 6 years of fictitious experience and flood the consulting market with 200% job matching resumes and lower billable rates.
      These H1B crazy , corrupt minded INDIANS have also bought their cronyism into US. Lot of undeserving people continue to thrive on H1B purely based on their association( caste, language and state in india) , the system needs to change, make sure H1B jobs are truly highly skilled professionals and make sure they get paid more or equal to american wages, that would discourage OUTSOURCING and H1B cheap laborers.

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