All you need to know about H-1B Visa
Posted on: 25/Mar/2018 10:30:51 AM
If you are perhaps aspiring to pursue a career in America after your IT studies, your H-1B visa application (that is most popular among Indians) would easily be accepted starting from 2nd April 2018.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services which is the federal agency handling migratory services and visa processing has announced that premium processing of all work visas are suspended temporarily owing to fiscal cap.
The US has TCS, Wipro, Infosys and Cognizant as the most important H-1B visa professionals in the US. Those dreaming to grab their H-1B visa will have to plan ahead of time.
So, the factors you need to know about H-1B visa application and process are as follows:
Dates
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) notified that the H-1B petition filing is for the year 2019 and it starts from 1st October 2018.
Annual numerical limitation
The limitation set for H-1B visas for one year is 65,000. To this, an extra of 20,000 can be added for workers in the US who hold Master’s Degree. This numerical cap is not applicable to H-1B workers who work for any institution or petitioned to any institution of higher education or other affiliated institutions or other non-profit entities or too any government research organization.
Required documents
While applying for H-1B petition using USCIS, you need to provide a signed, certified Department of Labor LCA (ETA 9035) along with documents of evidence (with English translations) of education credentials of the beneficiary.
In case of visa application for non-immigrant visa, the applicant must submit the entire copy of H-1B petition and other supporting documents. On the other hand, when the applicant gets a request for evidence (RFE) or notify to intent to deny (NOID), it is mandatory for the applicant to also submit copy of response without which the petition processing may get delayed.
Fees
For visa application, a basic filing fee will be applicable. Apart from this filing fee, an extra fee called American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998 (ACWIA) fee, Fraud Prevention and Detection fee or Public Law 114-113 fee are applicable.
The H-1B visa program lets companies hire skillful professionals from other nations to work in the US where extreme technical expertise is required. The H-1B visa program largely benefits Indian nationals.
Between 2007 and 2017, the highest number of applications received under H-1B petition from India is 2.2 million and from China is 301,000.
Amidst these, the Buy American, Hire American initiative by Trump has resisted H-1B visa applicants and other foreign workers and immigrants. Furthermore, the US Congress had proposed a new policy that protects American workers from any kind of discrimination or replacement by workers from other nations.
