December 21, 2020.
TED NewsDesk, New Delhi: As per the United States Federal Court, called the Ninth Circuit, has upturned the earlier decision of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) which denied the H-1B visas to computer programmers 2017. Computer programmers are now allowed the issuing of H-1B visas again under the category of ‘speciality occupation’. This decision will provide a huge relief to the Information Technology companies who employ programmers from around the world.
The US appellate court found the revoking of the visas as unreasoned and ‘unstable’. It should be noted that US immigration considered the special category for programmers grounds for eligibility for the H-1B visas till a year ago. Now the situation has become the same after this decision.
The previous decision to revoke the visas was taken after an American IT company Innova Solutions looking to employ a computer programmer from India was denied the H-1B visa application. As per the guidelines, the employer who is offering the H-1B visa programme for non-US citizens should be able to prove that the job needs a ‘theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialised knowledge.’
The company, Innova Solutions was unable to prove the specialty of the programmer’s job, making the court deny the visa. In so denying the visa, the USCIS was following the guidebook issued by the Department of Labour. The guidebook states that it is a prerequisite for most programmers to have a bachelor’s degree, also that a bachelor’s degree is the ‘typical level of education that most workers require’. The guideline thus nullifies the need of immigrant computer programmers as IT companies cite the need of.
According to Cyrus D Mehta, head of an immigration law firm based in New York, “the decision is a refreshing rebuttal to USCIS’s long-standing practice of challenging computer programming on speciality occupation grounds. It reminds the USCIS that it can’t rely on the bureaucratic description … (for denials).”
In any case, such a decision is welcome to IT professionals and hiring companies as it eases their operations and output.
Source: Times of India