The Hindu : U.S. to tighten visa regulations for foreign workers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 23, 2003

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U.S. to tighten visa regulations for foreign workers

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI Feb. 22. The U. S. Congressman and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., has said that regulations governing the H1B visas under which work permits are provided to highly-skilled foreign workers will be tightened further.

Addressing CII members here on Friday, he answered the concerns of the IT industry, saying that this was being done to ensure that only skilled IT experts were allowed in and not "cooks and poodle dressers".

He said the current ceiling for H1B visas was 1,95,000. This lapsed in September 2003.

Last year this number was under-utilised and, unless a new ceiling was set by May 2003, it would fall to the lowest level of 65,000.

However, given that 65,000 was too few and 195,000 too high, a fresh figure would be decided upon by May 2003.

On the new regulations that would affect student visas or I-20s, Mr. Sensenbrenner clarified that it would not pose problems for legitimate students from entering the U.S., but was aimed at keeping out those like Mohammed Atta, a Florida-trained pilot, suspected to have rammed American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Centre.

According to the old I-20 rules, a university issued the student visa and that student was registered with the immigration authorities only at the port of entry.

The new rules stipulated that the university register the student with the immigration authorities directly prior to issuing the I-20 and notify the immigration and Homeland Security Office at every step.

The Congressman, who is principal author of two major pieces of legislation signed into Congress post September 11: the Patriot Act (October 2001) and the Visa & Border Security Act (May 2002), did mention that there was resistance from U.S. colleges and universities for implementing this change.

The immigration department, often viewed as one of the weakest, was being strengthened to deal with the new issues of homeland and border security, money-laundering and the potential of chemical and biological attacks.

When entering and leaving the U.S., I-94s stubs submitted at entry and exit points would now be matched, as opposed to the earlier practice of merely keeping them in separate shoe boxes, he said adding that currently the U.S. had 11 million illegal aliens.

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U.S. to tighten visa regulations for foreign workers