Ramaswamy wants to end H-1B visa system: Report
Calling the much-vaunted H-1B visa system “indentured servitude”, Indian-American GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has promised to get rid of it if voted to power in 2024, Politico reports.
Ramaswamy, who has used the system 29 times in the past to hire high-skilled professionals for his pharma company, said the temporary worker visa system is “bad for everyone involved”, and that chain-based migration to the U.S. needs to be eliminated.
“The lottery system needs to be replaced by genuine merit admission. This is a form of indentured servitude that only benefits the company that sponsored the H-1B immigrant. “I will end it,” Politico quoted the 38-year-old entrepreneur as saying.
“People who come as family members are not merit-based immigrants who make skill-based contributions to this country,” said Ramaswamy, who was born to immigrant parents from Kerala.
The report said US Citizenship and Immigration Services approved 29 applications from Ramaswamy’s former company, Roivant Sciences, to hire workers under H-1B visas from 2018 to 2023.
“As the largest organization with members currently stuck in the green card backlog on H1B visas, we completely agree with @VivekGRamaswamy and others willing to speak the truth: H1B visas are, in fact, indentured servitude that exists only for that company. It benefits those who sponsor the visas, but it’s bad for everyone else. We agree – it’s time to end the H1B,” Immigration Voice, a US-based nonprofit, said on Twitter. written on.
Noting that Ramaswamy has made headlines for his restrictionist immigration policy agenda, Politico noted that “his rhetoric has at times gone further than that of other GOP candidates, as he opposes lottery-based visas such as H-1B worker visas.” Demand for.” It should be replaced with ‘meritocratic admission’.
He has also said he would deport US-born children of undocumented immigrants.
The H-1B visa allows companies and other employers in the US to temporarily hire foreign workers in occupations that require the theoretical and practical application of highly specialized knowledge and a bachelor’s degree or higher or its equivalent in a specific specialization. Is required.
Every year the US grants 65,000 H-1B visas to everyone and 20,000 visas to people with advanced US degrees.
According to the US government, the largest beneficiaries of H-1B visas are Indians, about 75 percent of whom are Indians.
In July 2023, Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamurthy introduced legislation proposing to double the annual number of foreign workers on H-1B visas from 65,000 to 130,000.
Earlier this year, bipartisan legislation was introduced in the US Senate to reform and close loopholes in the H-1B visa program designed to supplement America’s high-skilled workforce.
Source: mobi.greatandhra.com