Comes out strongly against proposed laws targeting H1B hires
American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: The much awaited Senate Gang of Eight bill for immigration reforms, which despite its promise to look at both facets of the immigration debate – legal and illegals’ rights – turned out to be top heavy in its desire to amend exiting laws for illegal immigrants, with much less weightage for the problems of legal immigrants, has now run afoul of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which has considerable influence on Capitol Hill as well.
In its first reaction after perusing the contents of the 800 plus pages of the document that was presented in the Senate and is due for deliberation in the Senate on Friday, Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII, has criticized the ‘discriminatory’ contents of the bill which, if ever implemented, is likely to adversely affect Indian technological companies the most.
In a statement, Banerjee lamented that “The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) welcomes and applauds the renewed efforts by the U.S. Congress to find a bipartisan solution to the critical issue of immigration reform. CII is, however, concerned about certain details in the bill put forward by the Senate Gang of Eight. It is of the opinion that the provisions on H1B visas in particular would be against the interests of Indian companies, and create an unequal playing field for them.”
Banerjee was referring to the unjust amendments being proposed in the bill which targets Indian technological companies like TCS, Infosys and Wipro, which hires a large number of Indian employees, and if the new proposals are implemented will have to conform to complex laws to sponsor employees as well as pay a huge amount of extra fees for each employee.
“CII urges the U.S. Congress to reject such discriminatory provisions. Any such restrictions, including new ones, on non-immigrant visas, if adopted, should apply uniformly to all applicants. Action specifically targeting Indian companies would not be in accord with our growing strategic partnership,” Banerjee said.
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