US maintains stand on fee hike.
By Dileep Thekkethil
India has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Friday over the decision of the United States to increase the fee of certain non-immigrant temporary working visas, like H-1B and L-1 visa.
In the complaint, India has questioned the move of the US to impose an extra fee on certain visa categories for temporary workers and the limited quota made available for such jobs, according to a statement released by WTO.
In its representation to the WTO, India has questioned the U.S. measures that inconsistent with its earlier commitments to accept services from other countries.
The WTO Statement read “it (India) has initiated a WTO dispute proceeding against the US regarding measures imposing increased fees on certain applicants for L-1 and H-1B categories of non-immigrant temporary working visas into the US, and measures relating to numerical commitments for H-1B visas.”
In the complaint, India has asked for consultations with the US and more details will be made available by the WTO in the coming days.
A spokesperson of the US trade relations, Andrew Bate, has confirmed that they have received the request for consultation from WTO.
“We are confident that the United States’ visa program, which was recently updated on a bipartisan basis by Congress, is fully consistent with our WTO obligations,” he said.
The US had recently doubled the fees for certain categories of H-1B and L1 visas to $4,000 and $4,500, respectively. H-1B and L-1 visas are temporary work visas for skilled professionals. India is the largest user of H-1B visas (67.4 per cent of the total 161,369 H1B visas issued in FY14 went to Indians) and is also among the largest users of L-1 visas (Indians received 28.2 percent of the 71,513 L1 visas issued in FY14).
1 Comment
Time to pull the plug on these much-abused visa programs and force companies to use domestic labor. There is no shortage of engineers.