New US immigration system benefits Indians: Nasscom

Bengaluru, 21 November 2014

The Indian IT industry’s representative body Nasscom Friday lauded the new US immigration system announced by its President Barack Obama earlier in the day and termed it beneficial to Indians living in North America.

“Obama’s executive action on fixing America’s broken immigration system will positively impact Indian residents and skilled workers in the US,” National Association of Software and Software Companies (Nasscom) said in a statement here.

Announcing the relief measures in his national address from Washington DC, Obama acknowledged the invaluable contributions skilled people made to the US economy and said the US was a nation of immigrants from the world over.

“The new measures will protect around five million undocumented immigrants from deportation and streamline procedures to retain students and skilled workers trained in the US,” Obama said on the occasion.

“The new regulation is a positive development for skilled Indian employees and entrepreneurs living in the US. Though details of the initiatives are awaited, we are happy to note that these policies did not reflect the pointers from the bill proposed earlier,” Nasscom president R. Chandrashekar said in the statement.

The new regulation proposes to modernise and streamline visa processes, enhance OPT (optional practical training) or F-1 visa category to allow more workers to participate and those who do stay longer, modify H-1B visa for foreign entrepreneurs, issue green cards faster to skilled immigrants and enable their spouses to work while living in the US.

“We will continue to engage with the US government to maintain smooth trade ties in coming years,” Chandrashekar noted.

Along with the government, Nasscom has been conveying to the US the importance of India-centric firms and Indian talent to the US economy over the years to sustain a healthy business environment.

“We believe the new measures will help the US to attract and retain talent and address skills shortage,” Chandrashekar added.

According to a new Pew Research Centre report, about 450,000 Indians live in the US without proper documentation.

Of the estimated 11.2 million illegal immigrants in the US, Mexicans account for 5.9 million.

Around 8.1 million unauthorised immigrants make up 5.1 percent of the US labour force, with many of them engaged in menial low paying jobs, which Americans don’t want to do.

Another step that Obama proposed is allowing high-skilled immigrants, graduates, and entrepreneurs to stay and contribute to the US economy. This proposal too will benefit Indians.

With 168,367 H-1B visas, India cornered nearly two-thirds of the total work permits for skilled workers in 2012.

Obama’s immigration plan falls short of Indian techies’ hopes

By Arun Kumar, Washington

As President Barack Obama camapaigned to sell his immigration plan to shield up to five million people from deportation and retain high-skilled immigrants, largely from India and China, analysts called it a mixed bag.

Obama’s plan, according to the White House, “focuses on cracking down on illegal immigration at the border; deporting felons, not families; and accountability through criminal background checks and taxes”.

It would also “make it easier and faster for high-skilled immigrants, graduates, and entrepreneurs to stay and contribute to our economy, as so many business leaders have proposed”.

Nearly six million Mexicans make up over half of an estimated 11.2 unauthorised immigrants in the US.

India is a distant fourth top source country with 450,000 living in the country without papers, according to a new Pew Research Centre report.

While about 8.1 million unauthorised immigrants make up 5.1 percent of the US labour force, many of them engaged in low paying jobs that Americans don’t want to do, Indians cornered nearly two thirds of the total work permits for skilled workers in 2012.

What he’s offering is a “common sense” first step to fixing a “broken system,” Obama Friday told a rowdy crowd at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, where two years ago he had outlined his post-election promise to finally reform immigration in his second term.

“Our immigration system has been broken for a very long time, and everybody knows it,” Obama said asserting his plan was “not amnesty” as alleged by his Republican critics.

Obama claimed he tried everything to work with Congress and chastised Republicans in the House for refusing to vote on the immigration reform bill that passed the Senate.

“I cajoled and I called and I met. I told [House Speaker] John Boehner, ‘I’ll wash your car. I’ll walk your dog. Whatever you need me to do, just call the bill.’ That’s how democracy is supposed to work,” he was quoted as saying by ABC News.

Earlier, Obama signed two presidential memoranda associated with his actions on immigration in his office on Air Force One shortly after landing at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.

Commenting on Obama’s order, The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) said it will have only moderate benefits for the technology industry.

To help the technology sector, Obama has agreed to increase the number of foreign graduates of American universities with STEM – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – degrees stay in the US to ease employment pressures and enable qualified students to stay in the country, it noted.

But it does not address industry hopes of keeping these individuals here on a long-term basis, CFR said as it does not increase the number of H-1B visas for high-skilled experts, currently capped at 65,000.

The Washington Post agreed that “the rule changes would make it easier for those from abroad to get a toehold in the US tech industry but will not address one of the tech industry’s top policy priorities: increase in H-1B visas.