US Immigration News

The controversial fee increases for an H-1B visa (from $2,000 to $4,000) and the L-1 visa (from $2,250 to $4,500), have received widespread news coverage in recent weeks. Unsurprisingly, the visa fee increase has caused friction between India and the US.

Reports coming out of India suggest that Indian IT firms are likely to respond by increasing client fees and processing more work from their centres in India. This will soften the blow of increased costs due to fees being doubled for US H-1B and L-1 visas.

Thanks to the massive Omnibus spending bill signed by Obama on 18 December 2015 to avoid a possible "Government Shutdown" there is in effect an increase in the 66,000 H-2B visas available for fiscal year 2016. The H-2B non-agricultural non-immigrant visa program allows foreign nationals to enter the US to take up temporary non-agricultural jobs offered by employers where there is a proven shortage. From 18 January 2016 nationals of the following 16 Countries will be added to the program:

The much reported visa fee increases for both the H-1B visa (from $2,000 to $4,000) and the L-1 visa (from $2,250 to $4,500) have unsurprisingly caused some ripples between Indian and US official bodies. This visa fee increase applies to Companies that have more than 50 employees more than 50% of which are H-1B visa employees. This affects mainly Indian owned companies in the US.

The Department of Homeland Security [DHS] is proposing employment-based immigration regulations to make life easier for highly-skilled immigrants and their employers in the US. The proposed regulations come in response to directives given by US President, Barack Obama, in November 2014 as part of Obama's executive actions on immigration reform. People who may benefit from the proposed changes are those on temporary work visas waiting for a green card.

The additional fees for H-1B and L-1 visas which mainly affected Indian owned companies in the US ended on 1 October 2015 only to be brought back on 19 December 2015. ,The US government has increased the fee for an H-1B visa from $2,000 to $4,000, while the L-1 visa fee was raised from $2,250 to $4,500. On December 19, the bill was signed into law by US President Barack Obama, which will fund a 9/11 healthcare act.

Over 3 million foreign nationals were issued with US work permits, working visas [including L-1A and L-1B visas and H-1B visas] and green cards [including EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3] according to the most recent data available, published by the Congressional Research Service for 2013.