NEW DELHI: With sentiments of present and prospective Indian immigrants to the US shaken following the Kansas shooting and the debate around tightening the visa norms, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar will be heading to Washington to put forth Indian concerns to the Trump administration.
Jaishankar will embark on his second visit to the US after Donald Trump’s win on Feb 28 and the issue of H1B visa is likely to be on the top of his agenda. Sources said that the Foreign Secretary is expected to meet Acting Deputy Secretary of State Tom Shannon among many other American officials during his four-day visit.
The other issue that is likely to figure in the talks is that of the safety of foreigners in the country in the backdrop of the Kansas shooting that claimed life of an Indian engineer and left another injured.
Last week a bipartisan delegation of the US Congressmen had arrived in India and has also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who took the chance to drive home the point of the important contribution made by the Indian immigrants in scripting the US growth story.
India has so far restrained itself from explicitly commenting on the H1B visa issues contending that the bill is yet to be passed by the American legislature. However, the issue will figure during Prime Minister Modi’s US visit slated later this year.
Trump administration has introduced the H1B visa revamping bill in the US House of Representatives. If the bill is passed, Indian software techies will bear its brunt the most. Indians account for the 72 percent of the total H1B visas issued by the US world over. The bill seeks to make it difficult to get the visa by doubling the minimum salary for H1B visa holders to $130,000.
A non-immigration visa, H1B allows US companies to hire foreign workers in the highly skilled occupation. IT Giants like Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Infosys Ltd and Wipro Ltd use these visas to send their programmers and engineers to work with their clients in the US using the H1B visas. According to estimates, the Indian IT industry has at least 350,000 workers on these visas.