Cyrus Mehta, an immigration expert based in the US, says that the new H-1B US visa policy memorandum, issued on 22 February by the US immigration authority, puts onerous responsibilities on IT firms wanting the US visas, as well as on their clients, with the latter may not wishing to take on those responsibilities.
Mehta has made a blog post in which he speculates that a bias against India may be the cause of the problem. He wonders if the business model would be under attack if it had been developed in Scandinavia instead of India, saying that even the media has unfairly maligned Indian H-1B workers as having displaced American workers with zero regards to the benefits such workers bring to the US.
The new rules mean that IT companies seeking to get an H-1B US visa need to show that the beneficiary of the visa has a specific work assignment for a specific time, within a specialty occupation. Mehta claims that the majority of this evidence needs to come from the end client, something that could make clients be viewed as the beneficiary’s co-employer and could also be a burden for the business, due to the amount of administrative work.
Mehta also said the client needs to provide a letter with the signature of an authorized official, giving details of the specialized duties they will perform, their qualifications in the field, how long the job will last, how many hours worked, plus salary, etc.