About Me

My photo
Beverly Hills, California, United States
Eli Kantor is a labor, employment and immigration law attorney. He has been practicing labor, employment and immigration law for more than 36 years. He has been featured in articles about labor, employment and immigration law in the L.A. Times, Business Week.com and Daily Variety. He is a regular columnist for the Daily Journal. Telephone (310)274-8216; eli@elikantorlaw.com. For more information, visit beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com and and beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com

Translate

Wednesday, April 05, 2017

Tech Roundup: Changes to the H-1B Visa Program Begin

New York Times 
By JIM KERSTETTER
April 04, 2017

While campaigning for president last year, Donald J. Trump promised changes to the H-1B visa program that brings skilled foreign workers to the United States. A critique of the program is that it can be used to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor. Critics say that Indian outsourcing firms, in particular, use it as a shortcut to make low bids on contracts.

President Trump has yet to unveil a significant revamp of H-1Bs, but over the last few days, his administration has started to make changes.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services announced on Friday that entry-level computer programming jobs would no longer automatically qualify as a “specialty occupation,” which is a basic requirement for receiving an H-1B work visa. And on Monday, the Justice Department warned that it would look closely at any employer that showed a preference for hiring H-1B workers instead of Americans.

The changes came just before the government started accepting applications for next year’s H-1B visas.

These steps will most likely fall short of dramatically affecting big tech companies like Google and Facebook. But the industry is still anticipating an executive order from Mr. Trump that could create additional changes to how H-1Bs and other work visas are issued.

More tech news:

Tesla has passed Ford in market value. While G.M. and Ford may have strong profits and healthy balance sheets, Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company offers something Wall Street loves much more: the potential for dramatic growth.

Trump has completed the repeal of online privacy protections from the Obama era. The change will allow broadband internet service suppliers to track and sell a customer’s online information with greater ease.

For more information, go to:  www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com

No comments: