Bush favours expansion of H1B visa programme

Washington, Jan 26: United States President George W Bush has made out a strong case for expanding the H1B visa programme, which allows foreign professionals to work in the US and whose main beneficiaries include computers engineers and highly-skilled technicians from India.

While speaking at a DuPont unit in Wilmington, Delaware, recently, on his plan for encouraging development of the alternative sources of energy, he referred to his Tuesday night's ''State of Union Address'' in which he talked about the need for a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

President Bush said, ''I also want you to know I understand that we need to make sure that when a smart person from overseas wants to come and work in DuPont, it's in our interests to allow him or her to do so.'' He added, ''We've got to expand what's called H1B visas.'' He said he knew that the US lawmakers were aware of this problem.

''I'm looking forward with Congress to do just that. It makes no sense to say to a young scientist from India, you can't come to America to help this company develop technologies that help us deal with our problems.'' Therefore, he pointed out, the US had to amend the laws, apparently to remove the hurdles that come in the way of hiring foreign professionals. ''So we've got to change that, as well, change that mind set in Washington, DC.,'' the President said.

He said, ''We're in a global economy. And so when the Chinese or the Indian economy grows -- which we want it to do, by the way -- when their economy grows, it provides markets for your products. So it's in our interests that we trade.'' The US Congress determines the number of H1B visas issued each year. The limit or the cap, as they call it here, was set at 65,000 in the current fiscal year which began on October 1, 2006. The US industry, by and large, favors expansion of the programme.

Under the H1B programme, a professional, with special skills can work in the US for six years. It is also a ''dual intent'' visa that enables a person to try to become a permanent resident.

H1B Visa Qualifying occupation categories are jobs in the fields of computer science, health care, university teaching, engineering, law, accounting, financial analysis, management consulting, architecture and scientific research positions.

A recently, released study by a team of researchers at the Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, shows a significant contribution by immigrants of Indian origin to the US economy.

It says Indian immigrants have founded more engineering and technology companies in the US in the past decade (1995-2005) than immigrants from the UK, China, Taiwan and Japan combined. Of all immigrant-founded companies, 26 per cent have Indian founders.

Almost 80 per cent of the immigrant-founded companies in the US were within just two industry fields- software (33 per cent) and novation/manufacturing-related services (46 per cent).

The study shows that immigrants have become a significant driving force in the creation of new businesses and intellectual property in the US - and that their contributions have increased over the past decade.

UNI