US to raise H-1B fee to fund border security

The US Senate On Friday approved a substantial increase in application fees for H-1B and L1 visas, most sought after by Indian IT professionals to fund a $600 million emergency package to improve security along the porous Mexican border.

The proposed massive increase in H-1B and L1 visa application fee would primarily affect the top Indian IT companies who rely majorly on these categories of visas to continue with their work in the US.

The Senate measure increases the visa fee to $2,000 per application on those companies that have less than 50 per cent of their employees as American citizens.

Senator Charles Schumer from New York said in his remarks on the Senate floor that there are companies whose whole purpose is to bring people on H-1B, and then they go back to their countries with the expertise they have gathered in the US.

Schumer along with his other democratic colleagues including Senator Claire McCaskill has introduced the legislation in this regard, which was passed by unanimous consent. During the debate, however, Senator John McCain wanted to fund the security along the Mexican border with the stimulus money, which was turned down by Schumer.

"The bottom line is this. I like the H-1B programme, and I think it does a lot of good for a lot of American companies. In fact, in the immigration proposal I made, along with Senator Reid and Senator Menendez, as well as the outline with Senator Graham, we expanded H-1B in a variety of ways," Schumer argued.

"There is a part of H-1B that is abused, and it is by companies that are not American companies.

Rather, they are companies that take foreign folks, bring them here, and then they stay here for a few years, learn their expertise, and go back. We think we should increase the fees when they do that," the Senator said.