Union commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Saturday deemed fewer H-1B visas for Indians as “good” for the country’s economy, while stating that he had never raised the H-1B and green card issue with the United States over the past 7.5 years.
The remarks come following continuous scrutiny of the H-1B program by the Donald Trump-led administration in the US. “Immigration is not directly related to trade. What relates to trade is mobility and mobility to provide a service where essential – every country has the right to monitor and regulate. We would not like people from across the world having open access to our country,” Goyal stated. He further added, “So, what does this mean? We will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labor certification applications involving these companies.”
Goyal said that he has several times gone on record to say that he has never raised the issue of H-1B visas and green cards in his talks with the Trump administration officials during his tenure as commerce and industry minister over the last 7.5 years. “Some of our best talent over the last particularly 25-30 years has gone away to the US.
He further said that he personally believes that “not getting more H-1B visas is absolutely good for the Indian economy. He said this was “good news”, explaining the reasoning behind this. And when I go and meet the diaspora there, and I see the billionaires of Indian origin literally down every street, I wonder what could have happened if all of them had been doing their businesses and research in India,” the Union commerce an industry minister said. “I am hereby suspending from the permanent labor certification program, some of the largest IT outsourcing firms in the world, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini; and also due to multiple active federal investigations, the department of labor is suspending Microsoft and Adobe from the program,” US secretary of labour Keith Sonderling said.
In its latest effort to block immigrant workers, America, earlier this week, suspended issuing crucial certificates to leading Indian IT services companies—including Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys Ltd—which are required for H-1B workers to seek green cards.
