While a lot of hue and cry is going on in the US about offshore outsourcing, another issue that is gaining currency is the availability of visas for software workers. Not long ago, the cap on H1B visa was re-duced from 1,95,000 to 65,000 per year and the quota for the current year is already exhausted. The L1 visa, which does not have quantitative limits, is being targeted for criticism by many sections in the US, with concerns being ex-pressed across industry and government circles about the possible abuse of temporary visas for technology workers.

The recently launched US VISIT programme is yet another measure which comes in the way of an efficient entry process to that country. Now citizens from India and all the non-visa waiver countries have to record their fingerprints and digital photographs while entering that country, although the move is mainly due to security considerations.

However, the IT industry and a few other technology-oriented sectors are already feeling the effect of campaigns and restrictive practices being proposed. There are efforts to introduce stricter visa regulations, particularly in the temporary categories. In a depo- sition before the Senate in February this year, Mr Michael Gildea, executive director of the Department for Profes-sional Employees, AFL-CIO, an umbrella organisation of about 25 unions, accused the three most reputed Indian IT companies ? TCS, Infosys and Wipro ? of violating the provisions of the L1 Visa and flooding the US with Indian workers, often bodyshopping them to other companies. In the process, US jobs were being lost at an alarming rate to these Indian workers, who were paid one-third the wages being paid to Americans. Apart from him, another deposed worker mentioned her plight and warned that such visa misuse was not only uprooting American jobs but also harming many immigrant workers. The reality is that all these companies were mainly using the H1B visa.

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