DHS final rule to overhaul H-1B visa in favour of higher earners
The final rule, released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday is due to take effect on February 27, in time for the annual H-1B spring lottery.
It is currently under review by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and is set to be officially published on December 29.
Alongside favouring “higher-skilled” and “higher-paid” workers, DHS said the change would “disincentivise abuse of the H-1B program to fill relatively lower-paid, lower-skilled positions, which is a significant problem under the present H-1B program”.
It is part of wider government efforts to ensure H-1B visas are issued to high earners, which saw the administration hiking the H-1B visa fee to $100,000 – a move it later clarified would not apply to F-1 students changing status within the US.
The drastic hike, which is up to 20 times more than what employers previously paid, has drawn three legal challenges, including one from the US Chamber of Commerce.
Today’s rule will come as little surprise to the sector after it was proposed in the Federal Register on September 24, with critics arguing that the change would constrain the US tech sector which they say would be moved to ramp up offshoring facilities and jobs.
53% of current international students say they would not have enrolled in the US if H-1B access was determined by wage levels
NAFSA
“There simply are not enough American computer science graduates to support the decades-long record of US innovation and economic growth. That is the wonder of the US tech sector,” Intead CEO Ben Waxman previously told The PIE.
“Why would the US government want to constrain that engine?” he asked.
What’s more, the change is likely to contribute to the declining appeal of the US among prospective international students who increasingly cite work experience and job opportunities as primary factors shaping study decisions.
In a recent NAFSA survey of current US international students, over half of respondents (53%) said they would not have enrolled in the first place if access to H-1B was determined by wage levels.
A similar proportion (54%) indicated they would never have enrolled in the US if it wasn’t for Optional Practical Training (OPT), which experts anticipate is also under threat.
The H-1B visa, popular with the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Apple, enables US employers to temporarily employ international workers in “specialty occupations” across a wide range of industries such as healthcare, computer science and financial analysis.
Currently, there is an annual cap of 85,000 new H-1B visas, and when this cap is exceeded, applicants are placed into a random lottery which determines who is awarded a visa.
Under the new weighted system, higher earners will be entered into the selection pool more times than lower earners, ranging from one to four times.
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