Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has said he will end the suspension of the H-1B visa if elected
Washington:
Democratic presidential candidate and former US vice president Joe Biden has said he will lift the temporary suspension of H-1B visas, the most sought after by Indian computer professionals, if he wins the presidential elections in November. .
On June 23, in a blow to Indian IT professionals eyeing the US job market, the Trump administration suspended H-1B visas and other types of foreign work visas until end of 2020 to protect American workers during a crucial election year.
Biden, at a digital town hall meeting on Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) issues hosted by NBC News, praised the contribution of H-1B visa holders.
“He (US President Donald Trump) has just ended H-1B visas the rest of this year. It will not be part of my administration,” said Joe Biden, 77, answering a question at the town hall. . He was referring to the temporary suspension of H-1B and other overseas work visas by Trump for the rest of the year.
“The people with the corporate visa built this country,” said Biden when asked what his administration would do in the first 100 days of his presidency.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows American companies to employ foreign workers in specialized occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees from countries like India and China every year.
“On the first day, I will send the Immigration Reform Bill to Congress to provide a roadmap to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants who contribute so much to this country, including 1.7 million from the AAPI community.
“My immigration policy is built around maintaining families, modernizing an immigration system while keeping families, unification and diversity as pillars of our immigration system, what it was”, said Mr. Biden.
He alleged that Donald Trump’s immigration policies were cruel.
Biden said he would take immediate action to protect dreamers, including more than 100,000 eligible dreamers in East and South Asia.
The former US vice president also said he would reverse the travel ban on Muslims and immediately restore refugee admission in accordance with the values and historic leadership of the United States.
Biden also told city hall participants that “it will make it easier for qualified green card holders to overcome this backlog.”
Donald Trump in April issued an executive order to suspend green cards for 90 days. In June, it issued a proclamation extending the suspension until December 31, 2020.
Each year, the United States grants only 1,40,000 green cards to all job-rich immigrants, including their accompanying family members.
Currently, there is a backlog of almost 10 lakh foreign nationals and their family members who are legally resident in the United States. These candidates have been approved but have not yet received a green employment card.
In his immigration policy paper, Biden says his highly qualified temporary visas should not be used to deter from recruiting workers already in the United States for jobs in demand.
“An immigration system that crowds out highly skilled workers for entry-level wages and skills alone threatens American innovation and competitiveness,” said the policy paper.
Joe Biden will work with Congress to first reform temporary visas to establish a salary-based allocation process and establish enforcement mechanisms to ensure they are aligned with the labor market and are not used to compromise wages, he said.
Secondly, Biden will support the increase in the number of highly qualified visas and the elimination of visa limits based on employment by country, which creates unacceptably long delays, he added.
The immigration policy document also talks about increasing the number of visas offered for permanent work-based immigration depending on macroeconomic conditions. Currently, the number of visas based on employment or the green card is capped at 140,000 each year, without being able to meet the state of the labor market or the demands of national employers, he said. declared.
As President, Joe Biden will work with Congress to increase the number of visas granted for permanent job-based immigration – and promote mechanisms to temporarily reduce the number of visas during periods of high unemployment in the United States, did he declare.
It will also exempt recent graduates of doctoral programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in the United States who are ready to make some of the most significant contributions to the ceiling. ‘Mondial economy.
Biden believes that foreign graduates of an American doctoral program should receive a green card with their diploma and that the loss of these highly skilled workers in foreign economies does not do any harm to our own economic competitiveness, the document said. orientation.
Joe Biden contests outgoing Republican President Donald Trump, 74, in the November 3 presidential election, where Trump is seeking re-election for his second four-year term.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
