Changes in H-1 B Visa imposes new set of burdens

H-1 B Visa changes impose a tough time to the employers

H-1 B Visa is a non-immigrant visa in US which allows US employers to temporarily employ international workers for a special task or a job. During the period of Visa if the employer dismisses the employee or the employee quits the job then he has to apply for a fresh and a changed status.

This includes occupations related to architecture, engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, biotechnology, medical sciences, art and a few more fields. There should be a sponsoring employer and the applicant should hold a bachelor’s degree to get this visa.

A fresh set of changes have been announced in this visa category which is likely to make things difficult for the employer and the applicant both. These changes will be effective from October 1.

Application gets costlier
The prominent change is to cap the number at 10 from 100 of before under LCA petition. A single LCA petition will cover ten present of applications at the cost at which it used to cover more in the previous days. The new changes are proving to be quite expensive as the immigration processing charges and legal charges are going to get risen up.

The amendments are expensive not only in term soft money but also in terms of other important resources like time. Earlier every LCA petition took half an hour, whereas now it is going to take at least 45 minutes.

With the present changes, a company has to pay almost $18,750 for processing 100 petitions which is much more expensive than before. Earlier LCA petitions were not charged separately but now they are.

Most of the IT companies apply for almost 4,000 H-1 B visa every year, which means the cost, is going to get multiplied for the applicant companies.

Name of the applicant

Earlier the companies had to only inform the number of employees going to US on this visa, now they will have to inform the name of the employee as well. Companies find it very difficult to propose the names well in advance because it actually depends upon the project and its requirement as to who will be assigned the task. Hence this amendment has brought in a lot of inconvenience to the companies.

Probably these changes are brought because IT companies have multiple audits in year. Also, US want to know employee engagements and movement of employees in advance, hence proposing the above mentioned changes.