In a blow to Indian professionals, the United States has announced additional measures for hiring of foreign specialists under the H-1B visa work programme making it more difficult for the companies receiving federal aid money to hire overseas workers.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced the measures to enforce the provisions of the new Employ American Workers Act (EAWA) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which prohibits hiring of H-1B visa holders by American companies who receive the federal aid money.
Indian nationals account for bulk of the coveted H-1B visas.
These measures come about ten days before the USCIS starts accepting petitions for new H-1B visas for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2009.
"Under this legislation any company that has received covered funding and seeks to hire new H-1B workers is considered an 'H-1B dependent employer'.
All H-1B dependent employers must make additional attestations to the US Department of Labour (DOL) when filing the Labour Condition Application (LCA)," the USCIS said.
"USCIS reminds petitioners that a valid LCA must be on file with DOL at the time the H-1B petition is filed with USCIS," it said.
This means that if the petitioner indicates on its petition that it is subject to the EAWA, but the Labour Condition Application does not contain the proper attestations relating to H-1B dependent employers, USCIS will deny the H-1B petition, the statement said.
Besides, the USCIS is revising Form I-129, Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker, to include a question asking whether the petitioner has received covered funding.
USCIS is expected to post this revised form on its web site in time for the next cap subject to H-1B filing period that begins on April l.
While USCIS encourages petitioners, whenever possible, to use the most up-to-date form, USCIS will not require use of the revised form in time for the start of the filing period for fiscal year 2010, it said.
At the same time, USCIS urged H-1B petitioners who have already prepared packages for mailing using the previous Form I-129 (January 2009 version) to complete only the page in the revised version of the Form I-129 (March 2009) which has the new question on EAWA attestation requirements and to file this single page with the prepared package.
USCIS said EAWA applies to any Labour Condition Application (LCA) and/or H-1B petition filed on or after February 17, involving any employment by a new employer, including concurrent employment and regardless of whether the beneficiary is already in H-1B status.
The EAWA also applies to new hires based on a petition approved before February 17, 2009, if the H-1B employee had not actually commenced employment before that date.
However, EAWA does not apply to H-1B petitions seeking to change the status of a beneficiary already working for the employer in another work-authorised category. It also does not apply to H-1B petitions seeking an extension of stay for a current employee with the same employer.
