After the Visa Reform Act introduced by Senators Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley that proposed serious curbs on H1-B & L-1 visas used mostly by IT firms, the issue will now also be part of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill, which is being initiated by Senator Charles Schumer. However, the Bill is not expected to come up before 2010.

With the unemployment rate in US touching an unprecedented 9.8% in September this year, the issue on technology companies taking Indian workers to the US on H-1B and L-1 refuses to die down.

However, the Visa Reform Act, which was introduced in April this year, is still to come up in the Senate and is more or less seen as dead, as the new Bill seeks to take an over-all approach to immigration issues in the US.

Ameet Nivsarkar, vice-president of the IT industry body Nasscom, who has just returned after meeting key stakeholders and Senate teams in the US along with Nasscom president Som Mittal told FE that the Bill addresses larger immigration issues in the US like illegal migrants (the number of which has touched 12 million), citizenship and residency issues. ?Business immigration issues will only be a small part of the entire Bill,? said Nivsarkar.

This is the second visit by Nasscom team to the US with the first one being in March. However, soon after the visit, Senators Durbin and Grassley introduced the Visa Reform Act. Meeting Durbin and Grassley was on the agenda of the team this time. The Visa Reform Act had sought to prohibit ?employers from hiring additional H1-B and L-1 guest-workers if more than 50% of their employees are H1-B and L-1 visa holders?.

The move could seriously impact IT companies, especially the tier-I as almost 90% of the 12,000 H1-B visas issued by Indian IT companies last year were taken up by the top five Indian IT companies?TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and HCL Technologies. The cap on issuance of H-1B visas is 65,000.

On being asked if the new Bill could prove to be more draconian in terms of restrictions on work permits, Nivsarkar said, ?It is unlikely. Most people are in favour of business continuity. However, the Bill is expected to be tough on misuse of H-1B and L-1 visas by a few companies which replace Americans by lower-paid Indian workers?.

He also added that the anti-outsourcing rhetoric is slowly dying down in the United States.

Nasscom is working on inputs to be sent for the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill. During the visit, though the team did not interact with the Senator himself, the team Nivsarkar and Mittal did meet the Senator?s team.

?Since energy and healthcare are reigning topics in the US currently, the bill is not likely to come up before the next 3-4 months,? said Nivsarkar.

Over 50% of the revenues of the Indian software exports industry comes for the US and a majority of the overseas workforce of Indian companies comprises of Indians on H1-B and L-1 visas. Meanwhile, this year the cap of issuance of 65,000 H-1B visas is still to be filled with only 46,700 issued this year.