The Biden administration will make it easier for Indians to live and work in the United States. As part of a pilot program (first reported by Bloomberg Law in February) the State Department may announce as soon as Thursday that a small number of Indians and other foreign workers on H-1B visas will be able to renew those visas in the U.S., without having to travel abroad, reports Reuters.
The pilot program would also include some workers with L-1 visas, which are available to people transferring within a company to a position in the U.S.
Indian citizens are by far the most active users of the U.S. H-1B program and made up 73% of the nearly 442,000 H-1B workers in fiscal year 2022. According to U.S. government data. the companies using the most H-1B workers in recent years include India-based Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, as well as Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta in the U.S.
India has long had concerns with the difficulty its citizens face in receiving visas to live in the United States, including technology industry workers. More than 10 million jobs stood open in the United States at the end of April, according to the Labor Department.
The Biden administration has spent months working to improve visa access for Indians, and wants to knit together the world’s two largest democracies, partly in a bid to better compete with China.
