After Immigration Reform Bill, U.S. Tightens L1-Visa

Bangalore: It is not long since the mammoth immigration reform bill found its way into U.S. senate that could prove detrimental for Indian IT firms; Washington has now trained its guns on the L-1 visa program, saying that without some changes, the bill is at risk for fraud and abuse, reports The Hindu.

L-1 visas, the non-immigrant visa, allows foreign nationals to work in U.S. for shorter amount of time, which varies on the basis of the country the immigrants are hailed from, like three months for Iran, one year for Mexico , two years for Brazil, Russia and China, and up to five years for India, Japan, and Germany. Unlike the H-1B visa, there is no cap or prevailing wage requirement with the L-1 visa.

 Indian IT companies, which have their operations in U.S., are the largest users of the L-1 visa program.

A report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General (IG) in U.S. has listed a series of recommendations to L-1 petition, to curb potential abuse, including more rigorous consideration of new office petitions to reduce fraud and abuse and applied anti- “job-shop” provisions.

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