The US government has said that it was extending the 60-day ban on immigration and non-immigrant worker visas till the end of 2020. So visas like the H-1B and H-2B, and certain categories of H-4, J, and L visas shall also remain suspended until the 31st of December, the Donald Trump government said during a press conference.
Trump has also said that the move was necessary to protect domestic workers who had been impacted due to a contraction in the economy in the wake of the pandemic.
So how does it affect us? Well, for the uninitiated, Indian IT companies are amongst the biggest beneficiaries of the US H-1B visa since the 90s.
According to the Indian Express, Indians had applied for 1.84 lakh or 67% of the total H-1B work visas (2.5 lakh) for the current financial year.
The Trump administration has also made some serious changes to the visas, meaning they will no longer be decided by the lottery system. These new rules will now favour highly-skilled workers being paid the highest wages by their respective companies.
This will also cause losses to Indian IT companies which also offer subcontracts to Indian nationals already present in the US with valid H-1B visas.
So, to sum it all, it’s going to be really, really bad and a lot of people are going to lose their jobs.