Washington, April 8 Amid the raging debate in US on raising the cap for H-1B visa for employees from foreign countries, two senators have written to 25 organisations, including half a dozen Indian IT companies such as Infosys and Wipro, seeking details on utilisation of this working visa.
Pointing out that the programme cannot be allowed to become a job-killer, Democrat Dick Durbin and Republican Chuck Grassley in a letter which is available on Grassley's website said, "We need to ensure that firms are not misusing these visas, causing American workers to be unfairly deprived of good high-skill jobs here at home."
The H-1B visa programme allows companies to employ temporary foreign workers in speciality occupations, often in the high tech industry, while the L visa programme is for intra-company transfers of managers, executives and specialists.
Apart from Infosys and Wipro, the letter has been to Satyam Computer Services, Tata Consultancy Services, Patni Computer Systems, I-Flex Solutions, Mphasis Corporation, Larsen & Toubro Infotech and Cognizant Tech Solutions.
The two senators had also the sent the letter to Microsoft Corporation, US Technology Resources LLC, Intel Corporation, Accenture LLP, Cisco Systems Inc., Ernst & Young LLP, Deloitte & Touche LLP, Google Inc., University of Illinois at Chicago, American Unit Inc., Jsmn International Inc., Objectwin Technology Inc., Deloitte Consulting, Prince Georges County Public Schools, JPMorgan Chase and Co., and Motorola Inc.
All the 25 entities accounted for nearly for 20,000 of the available H-1B visa in 2007.
The letter was sent on April 1 when the US Citizenship and Immigration Services started receiving H-1B visa applications for the fiscal year 2009.
"I have no doubt that we will hear arguments all day as to why the cap on H-1B visas should be raised, but nobodyshould be fooled. The bottom line is that there are highly skilled American workers being left behind, searching for jobs that are being filled by H-1B visa holders," the Grassley noted on his website.
"It is time to close the loopholes that have allowed this to happen and enact real reform," he added.
They also noted that US Congress must close loopholes in the H-1B and L-1 visa programmes that harm American workers, before increasing the H-1B cap.
In 2007, the two senators had introduced the H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, which would require H-1B applicants to make a good effort to hire American workers first and would give the Department of Labour greater oversight authority in investigating possible fraud and abuse.