Could Biden save the H-1B worker if elected ?
The recent rules put forth in what could potentially be the last working days of President Donald Trump have come as a further hindrance to US companies looking for global expertise at affordable prices and to workers in foreign countries dreaming of a better future. Especially affected are niche areas such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics which are now gaining ground as the mainstream tech jobs.
One of the most threatening rules that have been put forward is that companies will have to shell out salaries for entry-level H-1B workers that are in the 45th percentile of wages for that profession versus the prior level of 17th percentile. Higher-skilled workers would receive salaries in the 95th percentile from the 67th. In other words, there are pretty huge pay bumps across the board.
Another restricting rule is that foreign workers are now required to have the exact qualifications for jobs advertised and related degrees won’t factor into the offers.
The final nail in the coffin is that the H-1B validity period has been reduced, to say the least from three years to only one.
A beacon of hope for companies could be Biden if he is indeed declared the winner of the 2020 US elections. After having made all the right notions that are favorable to IT companies and H1-B workers, we can only wait to check if his words manifest into actions.
“My immigration policy is built around keeping families together, modernizing an immigration system by keeping families, unification, and diversity as pillars of our immigration system, which it used to be,” Biden said in his election campaign.
Biden has repeatedly said that he would exempt any kind of cap for recent graduates of Ph.D. programs in STEM fields in the United States, going so far as to promise to award them green cards. He has also added that family-based immigration would also be allowed by allowing spouses and children to be accompanied by the applicant.
Biden’s policies seem to reflect exactly what tech companies have been vying for instead of having complicated visa issues.
Although Biden seems like the better alternative, it is important to note that a lot of his policy statements have inconsistencies and don’t exactly explain what they mean.
Regardless of new policies, the process to obtain an H1-B visa is just as difficult. “The speed at which H-1Bs become harder to obtain might be different. But I very much doubt that a Democrat government is going to ease it up — there’s no congressional interest in doing that.” Mark Davies, global chairman at Davies & Associates, LLC, an immigration law firm based in New York, told Forbes Magazine.
