India to raise H-1B visa issue during '2+2 dialogue' with US, says Sushma Swaraj
India to raise H-1B visa issue during '2+2 dialogue' with US, Sushma Swaraj The government on Thursday said there has been no “major change” in the H-1B visa regime. The number of such visas has increased, it said. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said: “I would like to state that so far there is no significant change with regard to H-1B Visas. Changes have taken place, but no significant changes are there so far.” In fact, the number of H-1B visas had gone up from over 1.08 lakh in 2014 to 1.29 lakh visas now. As many as 1,08,817 H-1B visas were issued in 2014 and 1,19,952 in the following year, she said. Though as per Congress' Anand Sharma there was “42 per cent increase in the proportion of H-1B petitions denied for Indian professionals from the third to the fourth quarter of the financial year 2017”. “Yesterday, the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) has released the report. I will share it with the minister,” he added “I assure you that in the ‘2 plus 2’ dialogue, we will certainly and forcefully raise this issue also,” she said. -PTC News
