Indian-origin Howard University professor Ronil Hira recently explained a key reason why many US companies overwhelmingly prefer hiring H-1B visa workers.
According to Hira, it is a “no-brainer” for corporations to opt for H-1B employees because while they have “ordinary skills”, that are widely available in the US job market, they are still favoured due to economic advantages, such as legally being underpaid as compared to American workers.
The preference is rooted more in labour policy considerations than immigration policy, he told Hindustan Times.
‘H-1B is a guest worker program’
Hira referred to the H-1B visa program as a fundamentally guest worker program, which is designed to intervene in the labour market by introducing foreign workers with fewer workplace rights.
Unlike American workers, H-1B employees face weaker labour protections, he said. “That’s why employers love it, Silicon Valley loves it, and that’s why most workers don’t like it,” he added.
“Here are some very highly qualified people who come on H-1Bs, and so the real issue is how do you fix the program so that most of the people coming in are actually filling genuine skill gap?” he remarked.
Trump’s softens H-1B stance
Notably, Hira’s comments come days after US President Donald Trump softened his own stance on the H-1B visa controversy, admitting that the country doesn’t have workers who possess “certain talents” needed to fill jobs domestically.
“People have to learn. You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, ‘I’m going to put you into a factory where we’re going to make missiles’,” Trump had told Fox News.
US’ new criteria for H-1B workers
Recently, the US government also listed three new key criteria for H1B visa holders and Green Card applications.
Applicants mustn’t support terrorist organisations or back groups that are anti-US. They must immigrate to the country legally and come for the “right reasons”, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
Data from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for fiscal year 2024 indicated that around 71% of all approved H-1B visas were issued to Indian nationals, totalling approximately 2,83,397 visas out of a total of 399,395 issued across the world.