Anand Mahindra, chairman and managing director of Mahindra Group on Tuesday told CNBC TV18 that the H1-B Visa issue may turn out to be India’s Y2K Moment! He is there at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2017 which PM Narendra Modi will inaugurate shortly. He also said that Indian tech companies’ margins may improve as offshoring increases. The US President-elect Donald Trump will do anything to jeopardise India’s position with the US, he further added.
Meanwhile, a bill backing key changes in the H1-B programme that allows skilled workers from countries like India to fill high-tech jobs in the US has been re-introduced in the US Congress by two lawmakers who claim that that it will help crack down on the work visa abuse. The ‘Protect and Grow American Jobs Act’ makes important changes to the eligibility requirements for H1-B Visa exemptions was re-introduced yesterday by Republican Darrell Issa and Scott Peters – both from California. The bill among other things increase the minimum salary of H-1B visa to $100,000 per annum and eliminate the Masters Degree exemption.
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The legislation, they argued, will help crack down on abuse and ensure that these jobs remain available for the best and brightest talent from around the world. The bill comes after a number of companies — Disney, SoCal Edison and others — have come under fire for abusing the H1B Visa programme to replace American workers with foreign workers. The bill had faced opposition last year in Congress.
Reshaping immigration is a central tenet of President- elect Donald Trump’s push for companies to invest and hire more in the US. Trump has listed immigration reform among five executive actions he plans to take on his first day in office. They include asking the Department of Labor to investigate “all abuses of the visa programmes that undercut the American worker.”
(With PTI inputs)
