By Newley Purnell
NEW DELHI-- Santosh Pillai was wooed to work in the U.S. for his
coding skills more than a decade ago and has built a good life in
Cupertino, Calif. He considers it home and is awaiting approval for
his green card--but is now worried his family could be forced
leave.
As President Donald Trump follows through on his campaign
promises to tighten America's borders, Mr. Pillai fears he, his
wife and two children may have to return to India.
"It's like getting kicked in the stomach," said the 51-year-old,
who works for an American computer-chip maker that he declined to
name, fearful of added scrutiny. "The future is very
uncertain."
A draft of an executive order for Mr. Trump's consideration
calls for the government to re-examine a range of visa programs to
ensure they protect "the jobs, wages and well-being of United
States workers." This includes the H-1B visa program, which
provides visas for highly skilled foreign workers.
Adding to the unease, two Indian nationals who worked as
engineers at technology company Garmin Ltd. were shot Wednesday at
a bar in suburban Kansas by a man who witnesses say used racial
slurs before opening fire. One of the Indian men died.
Critics say the H-1B program, which is supposed to be used to
bring in workers with skills that are scarce in the U.S., is too
often used to bring in tech workers--largely from India--who are
willing to work for less than Americans.
Three of the top five H-1B employers in 2014, the latest year
for which data is available, were outsourcing firms from India,
according to Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship
and Immigration Services data analyzed by Ron Hira, an associate
professor of public policy at Howard University.
Between them, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Infosys Ltd. and
Wipro Ltd. brought in more than 12,000 new H-1B workers that year.
By comparison, large U.S. consumer-technology firms Microsoft
Corp., Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Apple Inc. brought in about 2,000
such workers in all.
Demand is so high for H-1B visas that for the last four years
the number of applications has surpassed the entire fiscal year's
85,000 supply in under one week, triggering a lottery.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump vowed to "end forever the use
of the H-1B as a cheap labor program."
U.S. tech companies are wary of new restrictions.
"It is the enlightened immigration policy of this country that
even made it possible for me to come here in the first place, and
gave me all this opportunity," Microsoft Chief Executive Satya
Nadella, who was born in India, told employees last month,
according to a transcript posted on the company's website. A
Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment on the company's use of
the H-1B program.
Blake Irving, chief executive of GoDaddy Inc., said in a
LinkedIn post earlier this month that there are "currently more
than half a million high-skill IT and computer science jobs sitting
unfilled in the U.S. today," and that the executive order, if
signed, "risks serious consequences for US-based tech companies'
ability to hire elite global talent."
Google and Apple declined to comment when queried about their
use of the visa program.
Anticipating policy changes, foreign tech workers are putting
life plans on hold and questioning career decisions, while
companies that have grown to depend on them are wondering if they
have to change their business models.
Some H-1B visa holders are putting off travel and starting to
formulate backup plans in the event of a crackdown. Most were
unwilling to be named in this article, concerned they could be
targeted if they spoke out.
H-1B visas are valid for three years and can be renewed for
another three years. After that, workers can apply for green cards,
though the wait often takes years, during which they continue
working on H-1Bs.
The looming crackdown is causing rifts between Silicon Valley
firms and Indian outsourcers, with some U.S. technology firms eager
to close loopholes in the program that can be abused by
outsourcers. Several bills in Congress call for raising the minimum
salary of H-1B visa recipients, a move perceived to be targeting
outsourcing companies.
India's $108 billion outsourcing industry would be hard-hit by a
clampdown, as their business model depends on sending armies of
engineers to the U.S. to work. The National Association of Software
and Services Companies, an Indian trade group, cut its growth
forecast for the sector following Mr. Trump's election.
Infosys Chief Executive Vishal Sikka said it was unfair to
suggest Indian companies were taking jobs from Americans. But in an
interview last month, he noted that outsourcers likely would have
to adjust. Infosys and others may have to "train and hire more
locally," he said, "and use the visa as necessary and as
permitted."
TCS and Wipro declined to comment.
Sankalp Modi, a 38-year-old Ph.D. and H-1B holder who has lived
in the U.S. for close to a decade, helps build software used by
engineers and scientists for MathWorks, a Natick, Mass.-based
computing software maker.
While he is sympathetic to Americans who might have lost their
jobs to outsourcers abusing the visa program, he is certain he is
"playing by the rules," and hasn't put any American out of work.
His backup plans include moving to Canada or Australia, and he is
about to take the English-language test required for visas to those
countries--just in case.
To keep more cash at hand, Mr. Modi cut back his retirement
savings and put off sending his daughter to preschool, and his wife
canceled her plans to launch her own tech startup.
Kapil Potdar, 38, an Indian citizen on an H-1B visa who develops
e-commerce software for a New Jersey firm, said he and his wife are
concerned about traveling outside the country at the same time. If
one of them was to be blocked from re-entering the country due to
sudden changes in policy, the other would need to be present in the
U.S. to sell their home, he said.
Write to Newley Purnell at newley.purnell @wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 27, 2017 05:44 ET (10:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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