US proposes changes to H1B visas, to be given to most skilled, highest paid foreign workers

Agencies
December 1, 2018

Washington, Dec 1: The Trump administration on Friday proposed major changes to the H-1B application process with the aim of awarding the visa to the most skilled and highest paid foreign workers. Under a new proposed merit-based rule, a notice for which was issued on Friday, companies employing foreign workers on the H-1B visa under the Congressional mandated annual caps -- would have to electronically register with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) during a designated registration period.

The H1-B visa has an annual numerical limit cap of 65,000 visas each fiscal year as mandated by the Congress. The first 20,000 petitions filed on behalf of beneficiaries with a US master's degree or higher are exempt from the cap.

The USCIS would also reverse the order allowing it to select H-1B petitions under the H-1B cap and the advanced degree exemption.

This is likely to increase the number of foreign workers with a master's or higher degree from a US institution of higher education to be selected for an H-1B cap number. As such the proposed rule will introducing a more meritorious selection of beneficiaries, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement.

The DHS said public comments on the proposed rule can be submitted from December 3 to January 2.

"Currently, in years when the H-1B cap and the advanced degree exemption are both reached within the first five days that H-1B cap petitions may be filed, the advanced degree exemption is selected prior to the H-1B cap. The proposed rule would reverse the selection order and count all registrations or petitions towards the number projected as needed to reach the H-1B cap first," the DHS said.

Once a sufficient number of registrations or petitions have been selected for the H-1B cap, the USCIS would then select registrations or petitions towards the advanced degree exemption.

"This proposed change would increase the chances that beneficiaries with a master's or higher degree from a US institution of higher education would be selected under the H-1B cap and that H-1B visas would be awarded to the most-skilled and highest-paid beneficiaries," it said.

The proposed process would result in an estimated increase of up to 16 per cent (or 5,340 workers) in the number of selected H-1B beneficiaries with a master's degree or higher from a US institution of higher education, the DHS said.

The USCIS said it expects that shifting to electronic registration would reduce overall costs for petitioners and create a more efficient and cost-effective H-1B cap petition process for the agency.

The proposed rule would help alleviate massive administrative burdens on USCIS since the agency would no longer need to physically receive and handle hundreds of thousands of H-1B petitions and supporting documentation before conducting the cap selection process, it said.

"This would help reduce wait times for cap selection notifications. The proposed rule also limits the filing of H-1B cap-subject petitions to the beneficiary named on the original selected registration, which would protect the integrity of this registration system," USCIS said.

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News Network
May 3,2020

London, May 3: The British government had a contingency plan for prime minister Boris Johnson’s death as his condition deteriorated while he battled COVID-19 last month in intensive care, Johnson said in an interview with The Sun newspaper.

Johnson returned to work on Monday, a month after testing positive for COVID-19. Johnson, 55, spent 10 days in isolation in Downing Street from late March, but was then was taken to London’s St Thomas’ Hospital where he received oxygen treatment and spent three nights in intensive care.

“They had a strategy to deal with a ‘death of Stalin’-type scenario,” Johnson, 55, was quoted as saying by The Sun. “It was a tough old moment, I won’t deny it.”

After Johnson was discharged, St Thomas’ said it was glad to have cared for the prime minister, but the hospital has given no details about the gravity of his illness beyond stating that he was treated in intensive care.

Johnson and his fiancée, Carrie Symonds, on Saturday announced the name of their newly born son as Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas, partly as a tribute to two of the intensive care doctors who they said had saved Johnson’s life.

“The doctors had all sorts of arrangements for what to do if things went badly wrong,” Johnson said of his COVID-19 battle. “The bloody indicators kept going in the wrong direction.”

He said doctors discussed invasive ventilation.

“The bad moment came when it was 50-50 whether they were going to have to put a tube down my windpipe,” he said. “That was when it got a bit . . . they were starting to think about how to handle it presentationally.”

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Agencies
March 1,2020

Washington, Mar 1: Beginning April 1, Indians wishing to immigrate to America will now have to pay an additional $50,000 for the EB-5 or the US investor visa, a media report said.

Although, this additional tax would impact all visa categories, it will predominantly create a barrier for people investing in the EB-5 visa programme, the American Bazaar daily said in the report on Friday.

In 2019, the EB-5 investor visa programme, for the first time since the 1990's, increased the minimum investment amount to $900,000.

With this increase in minimum investment, the new 5 per cent additional tax would mean that applicants would have to pay the extra $50,000, when they move money to an escrow account in the US to fulfil their application criterion.

"The changes to the tax on remittances is a reminder to Indians to carefully plan their tax position before making the move to the US," the American Bazaar quoted Mark Davies, Global Chairman, Davies & Associates LLC, as saying.

"People seeking to emigrate who do not wish to pay this tax at source and rather account for it later may wish to move their money ahead of the new rules coming into effect.

"It is possible to pre-emptively move money into an escrow account in the US until such a time as they are ready to proceed with emigration process," he added.

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News Network
May 13,2020

Islamabad, May 13 : The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Pakistan rose to 34,370 on Wednesday after new infections were confirmed in the country.

As per province-wise breakup of the total tally cited by Radio Pakistan, so far 13,225 cases have been registered in Punjab, 12,610 in Sindh, 5,021 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 2,158 in Balochistan, 759 in Islamabad, 475 in Gilgit Baltistan and 88 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

As many as 2,255 cases positive were confirmed, while 31 deaths reported during the last 24 hours.

At least 737 patients have died so far while 8,812 stand recovered, the media reported further.

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