President Trump should now walk the talk on the H1-B visa issue |
After months of woes related to the increasing restrictiveness of the American visa regime, President Donald Trump provided a sliver of hope to India`s technology professionals by saying that he wants a lot of people with merit to come to the United States. It is very important, Mr Trump said, to have people coming in on merit to help the United States. However, restrictions on the visa regime, part of Mr Trump`s “America first” and “Buy American, Hire American” policies aimed at ensuring more jobs go to American citizens, have become an irritant in relations between New Delhi and Washington. India has been hit hard by the Trump administration`s changes to the H-1B visa regime that benefits thousands of technology workers. So much so India`s external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj took up the issue during the inaugural 2+2 dialogue between the two countries last month and asked secretary of state Mike Pompeo to adopt a “balanced and sensitive” view on proposed changes to the H-1B regime that could impact people-to-people links. Technology firms use the H-1B visa to hire tens of thousands of professionals from India and China for specialty occupations.
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