The Biden administration will make it easier for Indians to live and work in the US, using this week’s state visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help some skilled workers enter or remain in the country, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The State Department could 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 US, without having to travel abroad, one of the sources said, part of a pilot programme that could be expanded in coming years.
Indian citizens are by far the most active users of the US H-1B programme and made up 73 per cent of the nearly 442,000 H-1B workers in fiscal year 2022.
“We all recognise that mobility of our people is a huge asset to us,” said another US official.
“And so our goal is to approach that in a sort of multifaceted way. The State Department already has been working very hard to find creative ways to make changes to things.”
A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on questions about which visa types would qualify or the timing of the pilot launch. Plans for a pilot programme were first reported by Bloomberg Law in February.
“The pilot would begin with a small number of cases with the intention to scale the initiative over the following one to two years,” the spokesperson said, while declining to define small.
The steps could change and are not finalised until they are announced.
The White House declined to comment.
GE fighter jet deal
New York: General Electric’s aerospace unit said on Thursday it has signed an agreement with India’s state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics to make fighter jet engines for the Indian Air Force.
The agreement includes the potential joint production of GE Aerospace’s F414 engines in India and the engines will be used to power Tejas fighter jets, GE said.
Space mission
India has agreed to join the US-led Artemis Accords on space exploration and to work with NASA on a joint mission to the International Space Station in 2024.
Chipmaker to invest
US memory chip firm Micron Technology said on Thursday it would invest up to $825 million in a new chip assembly and test facility in Gujarat, its first factory in the country.
Reuters
