New announcement brings smiles on H-1B visas Indian aspirants

New Delhi: The Trump administration's review of  H-1B and other worker visa programmes is not targeted at a single country and is "completely separate" from its ongoing  discussions with India about its data localisation policy, the US State Department has clarified ahead of Secretary of State Michael R Pompeo's visit  here next week. 

Reports emanating form the US quoted a State Department spokesperson as saying that the Trump  administration "has no plans to place caps on H-1B work visas  for nations that force foreign companies to store data locally." 

The spokesperson said on Thursday that the administration's "Buy American Hire American" executive  order calling for a broad review of US worker visa programmes was not targeted at a specific country and is "completely separate from our ongoing  discussions with India about the importance of ensuring the free flow of  data across borders." 

Earlier, a Western news agency reported that the US was considering capping at 10-15 per cent of all H-1B visas for countries that have a data localisation policy.The US issues 85,000 H-1B work visas every year, and Indians get an estimated 70 per cent of them.

On Thursday, the Ministry of External Affairs said the government was in talks with the US on H-1B visas,  but has "not heard anything officially from the US government." Pompeo will be here on June 25-26 for talks for a meeting between Prime  Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump in Osaka, Japan, on the sidelines of the G20 summit. 

Giving  a sneak preview of his talks, Pompeo last week said he  will  discuss data localisation regulations, participation in 5G telecommunication and  India's plans to buy the S-400 Triumf missile defence system from  Russia, beside the Indo-Pacific strategy. 

Also on Thursday, Pompeo spoke with External Affairs  Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and underscored the strong US commitment to  working closely to advance the  strategic  partnership between the two countries. 

"Secretary Pompeo and Minister Jaishankar also discussed  shared US and Indian objectives in safeguarding a free and open  Indo-Pacific, US-India security cooperation, and the US-India  economic partnership," State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement. (UNI)