April 29, 2023: U.S is on the track to prioritise work visas for Indians. H-1b, L-1A, L-1B? What do these mean? Simply explained!
Donald Lu, U.S Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia said in an interview about prioritising work visas: H-1B’s and L visas, the most sought-after by IT professionals from India. It is vital for both the American and the Indian economy.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa which allows U.S companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations requiring theoretical or technical expertise.
Imagine you have a friend from another country who wants to come and work with you in your school or your family. But your country has rules that say they can't just come and work here without permission. That's where an H1B visa comes in.
An H1B visa is a special permission slip that allows someone from another country to come and work in the United States for a while. It's like a permission slip from the teacher to let your friend come and work with you in your classroom for a little bit.
But not everyone can get an H1B visa. Your friend needs to be really smart and have special skills or knowledge that make them really valuable to the school or family they want to work with. They also need to follow some rules and fill out some paperwork to get the permission slip, just like how you need to follow the rules and do your homework to get good grades.
So, an H1B visa is like a special permission slip that lets someone from another country come and work in the United States if they are really smart and have special skills or knowledge that are valuable to the school or family they want to work with.
Imagine you work for a really big company that has offices in different countries. Sometimes, the company might want to send you to work in a different office in another country for a while. That's where L-1A and L-1B visas come in.
An L-1A visa is a special permission slip that allows someone who is in charge of a company or a big group of people in one office to come and work in a different office in another country for a while. It's like when your teacher lets the class leader go to another classroom to help the teacher there for a little bit.
An L-1B visa is a special permission slip that allows someone who has special knowledge or skills in a certain area to come and work in a different office in another country for a while. It's like when the school sends their best math teacher to another school to teach the students there for a little bit.
But just like with the H1B visa, not everyone can get an L-1A or L-1B visa. The person who wants to come and work in the other office needs to follow some rules and fill out some paperwork to get the permission slip, just like how you need to follow the rules and do your homework to get good grades.
So, an L-1A visa is a special permission slip that allows someone who is in charge of a company or a big group of people to come and work in a different office in another country for a while, and an L-1B visa is a special permission slip that allows someone who has special knowledge or skills in a certain area to come and work in a different office in another country for a while.
A senior official from U.S said that Biden administration is committed to make sure about the processing of all the Indian student visas whose school starts this fall. Mr. Lu notified that they are on a track to issue more than 10 lakh visas this year as the technology companies depend on it for hiring tens of thousands of employees each year from India and China. This number of visas is a record for U.S along with a record number of students and immigrant visas.
India is the second country in the world in terms of international students coming to the United States yet there have been growing concerns in India over the long waiting period for first-time visa applicants. Mr Lu assured that wait times at some their embassies in India for these visas are now below 60 days.
U.S plans to restart domestic visa renewal for applicants who meet certain requirements in certain petition-based nonimmigrant work of visa categories and for this they have a pilot up and running later this year in order to eliminate the need for these applicants to travel abroad for renewing their visas.
Mr. Lu mentioned that the Department of Homeland Security just released some new material precisely on the issue of what these individuals ought to do in order to readjust their status in response to a question regarding Indian IT experts who are on H-1B visas and have lost their jobs.
The support of both parties exist for the US-India relationship, he claimed.
"I believe that a genuinely strong migration community exists in the United States and contributes to the solution. Our relationship has been influenced for at least 30 years by Indian Americans who have lived in this country for many years yet still maintain a close connection to India”, he said.
More than a million individuals regularly travel between the two nations.
Considering that we are in no way close, that is an astonishing figure. Flying between cities is highly expensive. However, the connections made by those who moved here or perhaps by their parents who are from India continue. Immigration hasn't reduced them, he claimed.
"In fact, we now know that there are also over 100,000 Americans residing in India. This relationship weighs heavily and is in our best interests. Yeah. Therefore, I believe that is true for American families as well as political parties. I had numerous Indian American friends when I was growing up. That, in my opinion, is simply a component of American society", Mr. Lu added.
