Hundreds of thousands of work visa holders may lose legal status in the USA

If visa issues are not resolved, the United States could face “a catastrophe on a human and economic level,” writes Bloomberg.

Photo: Shutterstock

Manasi Vasavada has less than three weeks left before she loses her legal right to stay in the country. Dental practice in Passaic County, New Jersey, where the 31-year-old Vasavada worked for almost two years, closed in mid-March due to Covid-19. Since then, the woman has been on unpaid leave.

Wasawada remains in the United States with an H-1B visa, a temporary stay program designed for people with special skills. H-1B recipients can stay in the country legally without paid work for only 60 days. Her husband, Nandan Buch, also a dentist, is in the country on an H-1B visa, which expires in June. Both of them experience growing fear as they count down days without work.

There may soon come a time when the couple will not be able to stay and will not be able to leave: India, their home country, has closed its borders indefinitely. The couple also took out $520 in student loans after earning advanced degrees from US universities - a loan nearly impossible to repay with the salaries they would earn in India. Due to stress, 000-year-old Bukh began to lose his hair. Both had trouble sleeping.

“Things are really confusing and dark right now,” Vasavada said. “We don’t know where we will end up.”

According to Jeremy Neufeld, an immigration policy analyst in Washington, DC, by the end of June, 250 foreign workers applying for a green card in the United States (about 000 of them live on H-200B visas) could lose their legal status. About three-quarters of the H-000B visas are intended for people working in the technology industry, although the exact data varies from year to year.

On the subject: Immigrant doctors cannot rescue COVID-19 patients in the US due to visa restrictions

Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs in the past two months, but visa-based workers in the country are vulnerable compared to US employees. For example, H-1B visas are associated with a specific place and the employer, who undertakes to pay the recipient a minimum wage. Cheating employees, reducing their wages and, in some cases, allowing them to work from home, violate visa requirements. Dismissed H-1B workers have 60 days to find another job, move to another visa, or leave the country. Even if they do not lose their jobs, people may face a dilemma if they cannot renew their visas during the downtime.

The visa crisis is causing "a catastrophe on a human and economic level," said Doug Rand, who worked on immigration policy in the Obama administration before co-founding Boundless Immigration Inc., which helps people navigate the immigration system. H-1B workers often have families who also rely on their work to gain permission to remain in the country, including children who may have spent their entire lives in the US.

On April 17, TechNet, a lobbying group that includes Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, joined a coalition of trade groups calling for help for workers born abroad. In the letter of appeal was a request to extend the validity of work permits, at least until September 10.

“Without action, these problems will result in hundreds of thousands of unfilled jobs and have profound negative economic consequences,” the letter said.

According to Alex Burgos, senior vice president of federal policy and government relations at TechNet, the tech industry is critical to supporting remotely operated offices, helping doctors provide telemedicine services, and providing students with home-based training.

“We have seen the administration extend tax filing deadlines,” he said. Burgos said such flexibility in visa programs makes sense "because it's no one's fault."

The Trump administration did not respond to the letter. The representative of the US Citizenship and Immigration Service refused to say whether the agency would extend the visa deadlines, but said that it could provide special support to people affected by circumstances beyond their control, upon request.

The administration has consistently taken a tough stance against immigrants and foreign-born workers. The number of nonimmigrant visas fell for the fourth year in a row, from 10,9 million in 2015 to 8,7 million in 2019, according to the State Department. The department closed embassies and consulates in March 2020, providing little guidance to those at risk of being placed in illegal status. In-person services at USCIS have been suspended since March 18 and will not resume until June 4, with a 78-day interruption in service.

On April 20, President Donald Trump tweeted that he plans to temporarily ban all immigration to protect US jobs. The next day, he announced a 60-day ban on receiving green cards for most people arriving from outside the United States. This has exacerbated the threat of further disruptions to companies that employ many foreign-born workers.

On the day the president announced his executive order, Louis von Ahn, co-founder and chief executive of language learning startup Duolingo Inc., tweeted that a ban on green cards would force the company to move work overseas. Von Ahn is an immigrant from Guatemala, and one-fifth of the company's 250 people work in the U.S. on H-1B or other visas. However, the company plans to increase its workforce by 50% to keep up with increased demand during the pandemic.

In one case, Duolingo tried to hire an engineer who had recently been fired from another technology company. The worker is in the United States on an O-1 visa, which is designed for people with extraordinary abilities. According to a Duolingo spokesperson, he will now have to wait 6 to 9 months to obtain a visa and work permit. At the same time, he cannot work for the company or leave the USA.

On the subject: Coronavirus and immigrants: what holders of work visas need to know during a pandemic

However, the companies facing the most difficult decisions are those cutting staff in response to the pandemic. Some choose to fire foreign workers whose visas require regular payments. Others choose to keep H-1B workers on staff to maintain their legal status while laying off Americans. There is a risk in either approach, as employers are exposed to the potential risk of being sued for discrimination, says immigration and employment lawyer Rebecca Bernhard.

For some workers, a stable future in the US suddenly turned out to be distant.

Sean Noronha, a 23-year-old Australian living in San Francisco, was fired from a technology startup in January. He found a new job at a software development startup ready to sponsor his visa. But before he could get to the Australian consulate to update his documents, the Covid-19 pandemic began.

Noronha changed his status from working to tourist, which allows him to remain in the United States until the end of June. But without a regular salary, he quickly spends his savings. Recent tweets from President Trump to tighten immigration restrictions have made Norony doubt his decision to move to the United States.

“It made me wonder, did I make the right choice? said Noronha. “Should I just go home and maybe chase the American Dream sometime in the future?”

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