U.S.—As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps through the U.S. claiming lives and jobs, thousands of immigrants on the H-1B visa program, who are now unemployed, may equally lose their right to stay in the United States by June, 2020.
This is because the H-1B visa, given to immigrants in tech, medicine, and other high skill sectors, is tied to a job and a location. Holders who lose their jobs have 60 days to find another and renew their status, otherwise they should return home.
Even immigrants on the program still keeping their jobs may be unable to renew their visas, as the U.S. government is seeking ways to create jobs for citizens amid massive layoffs engendered by the pandemic.
Earlier this month, a U.S. tech workers group, trending the hash-tag #AmericaFirst, urged President Trump to suspend the H-1B program for 2020, with claims that Americans who are being laid off daily due to the pandemic, would need guest worker jobs to survive.
Immigrants on the program had won a reprieve in March, when the grace period within which they should get new jobs or leave, was extended from 60 to 90 days. The grace ends in June and another extension is unlikely, even as guest workers are pleading further room of at least 180 days.
A worsening job crisis in a pandemic yet to abate further threatens the prospect of more concessions.
Doug Rand, co-founder of Boundless, an enterprise providing support to immigrants, says the visa conundrum is “a mess”, one that is creating “a catastrophe at a human and economic level.”
TechNet, a tech lobbying group with members including Google, Microsoft, and Apple, has joined other trade groups asking that work authorization be deferred till at least September 10.
Closer home, some Nigerian students in the U.S., whose work authorizations expire in May, are also at risk of being unable to work to support themselves.
The Trump administration is yet to issue a new policy direction on the immigration crisis