Will The US Court Rule Against The Tighter H-1B Visa Rule?

On December 7, the Department of Homeland Security’s tougher H1-B visa rule will come into effect. It would impact Indian software engineers and IT firms.

That is why the recently concluded hearing for the lawsuit that challenges the rule is highly important. If the court blocks the rule, it could provide great relief to the India H-1B visa holders there.

On October 6, 2020, the DOL and DHS announced 2 rules that would make it difficult for companies to hire H-1B workers. They include increasing the wages and tightening the H-1B regulation.

Soon after the announcement, 3 lawsuits were filed in the US. Out of 3 2 were against the DOL’s wage hikes. The third one was filed by the US Chamber of Commerce and other organizations and supported by US tech firms like Google and Amazon.

The Trump administration, announcing the H-1B rule changes, had argued that was to protect American jobs at the back of COVID-19.

Stuart Anderson, founder, National Foundation for Public Policy, in a Forbes report, pointed out that IT fields where the majority of H-1B workers were deployed saw the least unemployment rate at 3.5 %.

“The arguments the government put forth were lacking evidence”, said one firm.

President Joe Biden could bring in an executive order to change it, but it might take a few months and might not be easy.

Powell, an immigration attorney in the US quoted earlier, said: “I think we will get a decision from the court fairly quickly. The court will want to deal with the challenges before December 7."