India-US biz body asks PM Modi to take up H1-B visa concerns with Trump

The chamber has mooted a high-decibel campaign to highlight India Inc's contributions in the US

The Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) has turned to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take up the cudgels on behalf of India's industry in the face of US President Donald Trump's policies.

It urged Modi to visit the United States and hold discussions with Trump to sort out the apprehensions expressed by Indian industry, particularly the information and communications technology sector, on the negative impact of tightening visa rules relating to H-1B and L-1 visas.

IACC President N V Srinivasan said, "It is the right time for our two countries – India and the US – to clear the misconceptions and erroneous inferences voiced from various quarters regarding the loss of jobs in the US on account of granting H-1B visas to skilled Indian workers."

The reports emanating from the US suggest that the visa rules may be tightened further, he said, adding that the decision of the US to suspend priority processing of H-1B visas was affecting the Indian industry already. 

"An amicable solution to such vexatious issues will require consultations at the highest level — between Modi and Trump,” Srinivasan said.

The chamber said that the contributions of Indian tech workers have to be seen against their works in scripting technological changes in the US economy. 

Those contributions have been discernible for quite some time — there are two Indian-born Nobel Prize winners in the US and a large number of people of Indian origin have patented important innovations and discoveries. 

Some of them are also heading large US global corporations. Among the present crop of H-1 B visa holders, several of them are involved in high-end innovation and technology development, aiding US corporations to shore up their technological edge.

“To categorise these brilliant minds, which are imbued with the passion to work 24/7, as mere workers, is an anachronism. Further, for a nation like the US, which believes in 'meritocracy' more than any other country, visa regulations for technical people sound like a paradox,” he added.

Quoting a report by the US Chamber of Commerce, Srinivasan said that the perception that H-1B visa holders are replacing American workers is misplaced. 

Even if it were true, the report points out that only 600 jobs are lost per year on account of outsourcing. That will work out to only 0.0003 per cent of the 20 million jobs lost every year in the US due to lay-offs, automation, business closures and other extraneous reasons. 

There is also a misconception about the number of H-1B visas granted to Indians, which works out, on average to 15 per cent of the visas of that category granted by the US. 

"One can understand such emotive issues getting raised during the time of the election, but such rhetoric had died down after the elections. The present controversy should also make a silent retreat,” he said.

The IACC president also said that Indian contributions in the US were manifold and went beyond just the things which happened and were chronicled in Silicon Valley.  

For instance, between 2008 and 2013, Indian foreign direct investment in the US was around $28 billion, which would have declined in the aftermath of the financial meltdown of 2008. Indian information technology (IT) industry supported over 400,000 jobs in the US in 2015, riding on the back of an annual growth of 10 per cent or so. 

Indian corporations paid close to $23 billion to the US treasury in taxes between 2011 and 2015. 

Quoting an article in the Harvard Journal on Legislation, written by Josh Carddock, the chamber said that Indian workers had contributed $27.6 billion into the US social security system over the past 10 years. 

“These are revealing statistics that should modify the perception of an average American about India and the Indians. From our side also, it is important that we should carry out a high-decibel campaign to make the people understand that the relationship is loaded and beneficial in both ways and balance of trade in favour of India does not reflect the true composition of fund flows,” Srinivasan said. 

He observed that another factor which was relatively unknown was that 50 per cent of the H-1B visas and intra-company transfer visas (L1) were granted to Indian professionals and students passing out from US universities. These same students had spent huge amounts in fees while studying at these US universities. India ranks second in the number of students opting to study in the US, after China.

Further, he pointed out that the US presence in India was growing not only in terms of trade and investment but also in emerging verticals like collaborative research and development (R&D), defence, urban planning and healthcare. 

There is a sizable number of American companies present in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, which are engaged in R&D, data mining, analytics, genome sequencing, incubators, among other things. 

The US corporations also supply, in large numbers, items like sensors, drones, satellites, equipment fitted with artificial intelligence, among other things, to India as part of the country's digitisation programme. 

American IT corporations like Microsoft, Dell and Apple have a sizable share in India’s technology platforms and digital space. 

The recent efforts of Apple to assemble and manufacture smartphones in India are well known. Although, India is yet to take a call on the concessions demanded by Apple for the same. 

Also, many corporations from the US like Harley Davidson have approached the government to bring down the customs duty to market their products in India. 

Significantly, the US has nudged aside Russia as the major defence supplier to India. “These are indicative of the fact that from the industry perspective, there is a well thought out road-map to push up the economic engagement," the chamber president said.