Outdated H-1B visa and immigration policies are stopping talented Indian professionals from choosing the United States, as they are instead going to Canada, US lawmakers were told on Tuesday.
Urging Congress to prevent the most-sought Indians from moving to Canada from the United States, experts told it to take action as the diversion is due to the quota given to each country for issuing employment-based green card or PR (permanent residency).
If Congress fails to act fast, the total backlog that exists at 9,15,497 for all three employment-based categories for Indians will increase to a whopping 21,95,795 by the fiscal year 2030, Stuart Anderson, executive director of National Foundation for American Policy said.
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In his testimony submitted before the House Judiciary Committee-Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, he said, “We should let that number sink in: Within a decade, more than 2 million people will be waiting in line for years or even decades for employment-based green cards.”
Highly skilled foreign professionals and international students are choosing Canada over America due to the H-1B or PR status attaining difficulties present here, Anderson testified before the panel.
“This has happened in response to how difficult it is to work in the United States in H-1B status or gain permanent residence, and the comparative ease of international students and foreign nationals working in temporary status and then acquiring permanent residence in Canada,” he said.
As per the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP)’s analysis of the US government data, during 2016-17 and 2018-19, the US witnessed a 25 per cent drop in the number of international students from India admitted into graduate-level computer science and engineering courses at American universities.
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The attention being given to this decline is due to the seats taken up by Indian students generally each year, which will now be left vacant. Usually, Indian students represent 75 per cent of the total full-time students’ list in US universities for computer science. In 2016-17, two-third of the international students in computer science graduation course in these schools were Indians, putting light on the significance of students from India and the US’s need for them.
Meanwhile, according to the Canadian Bureau for International Education, Canada is now seeing an increased number of Indian students as in 2016 those getting enrolled in Canadian universities were 76,075 Indians, which went up to 1,72,625 in 2018- more than double in 2 years and a 127 per cent increase, Anderson said.
