US President Biden lets Trump era H-1B visa bans expire, to benefit Indian IT professionals

 US President Joe Biden has not issued a fresh proclamation for the ban on H-1B visa to continue after March 31, 2021.

The President of the United States of America on April 1, 2021, has let the ban on foreign workers visa, especially H-1B visas, lapsed as the notification issued by his predecessor Trump expired. The move is expected to benefit thousands of Indian IT professionals in the US.

Donald Trump in June 2020, amid the national lockdown in the US and COVID-19 crisis, had issued a proclamation suspending the entry to the country of the applicants for non-immigrant or temporary visa categories, it included H-1B visa.

However, US President Joe Biden did not issue a fresh proclamation for the ban on H-1B visa to continue after March 31, 2021. During the election campaign, he had promised to lift the suspension on visa stating that Trump’s immigration policies were cruel.

H-1B Visa:

The H-1B Visa is a non-immigrant visa. It permits the companies in the United States to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations requiring technical or theoretical expertise. Tech companies, in particular, depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like China or India.

H-1B visa ban expires: What now?

No new proclamation by President Biden:

No new proclamation regarding the ban was issued by the US President till the mid-night of March 31, 2021. It resulted in an automatic end to the ban on issuing fresh H-1B visas to the eligible applicants.

It was reported that the White House will not renew a ban on H-1B visa as well as on other work-based visas imposed in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic that is set to expire on March 31.

Republicans urge to continue the ban on H-1b Visa:

A Republican Senator from Missouri had requested President Biden to issue a fresh proclamation in order to continue with the ban on H-1B visa.

Senator Josh Hawley in a letter highlighted that millions of Americans are out of work and now is not the time to open gates to thousands of foreign workers who will be competing with the American workers for scarce resources and jobs.

Background:

As the former President of the United States, Donald Trump had banned the foreign workers' visa, he had argued that these visas present a risk to the US labour market amid the economic recovery. On December 31, 2020, he further extended the order to March 31, 2021, and mentioned that the extension was warranted as the pandemic continued to disrupt American lives and the problem of job loss and unemployment still prevails.