WASHINGTON - Indians face a big setback with the new US H-1B Visa Policy.
The process of filing petitions for H-1B, considered the most sought-after work visa among highly skilled Indian professionals, begins tomorrow amidst unprecedented scrutiny by the Trump Administration.
A strong indication has come from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services or USCIS, the federal agency which is responsible to process all H-1B visas, that there will be zero tolerance by it for even the minutest of errors.
Reports suggest that immigration attorneys this time expect a much high rate of rejection.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India.
The H-1B visa has an annual numerical limit cap of 65,000 visas each fiscal year as mandated by the Congress. The first 20,000 petitions filed on behalf of beneficiaries with a US master's degree or higher are exempt from the cap.
Days ahead of the start of the H-1B visa application process for the fiscal year 2019, beginning October 1 this year; USCIS warned that all duplicate applications would be subject to rejection.
In previous years filing of duplicate petitions, by companies, so that applicants could have greater chance in getting through the lottery had become a normal practice.