Will 'gut' H-1B visa program if elected president: Vivek Ramaswamy
Indian-American Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has pledged to end the H-1B visa program if he wins the 2024 presidential race. Labeling the program "indentured servitude," Ramaswamy said he would replace the "lottery-based system" with "meritocratic admission." The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows United States (US) companies to employ foreign workers in various jobs requiring theoretical or technical expertise. Information technology (IT) companies rely on it to hire thousands of employees from countries like India and China.
Ramaswamy's immigration policy echoes Donald Trump's
Ramaswamy said in a statement, "The lottery system needs to be replaced by actual meritocratic admission. It's a form of indentured servitude that only accrues to the benefit of the company that sponsored an H-1B immigrant. I will gut it." "The people who come as family members are not the meritocratic immigrants who make skills-based contributions to this country," he added. Ramaswamy's stance on H-1B visas reportedly echoes that of former President Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.
US's tech industry relies on H-1B visas to hire staff
The H-1B visa program significantly impacts both US businesses and foreign workers. Therefore, its demand continues to increase, with 780,884 applications submitted for just 85,000 available slots in fiscal year 2021, per reports. Ramaswamy himself has used the visa program 29 times. From 2018 through 2023, US Citizenship and Immigration Services approved 29 applications for his former company, Roivant Sciences, to hire employees under H-1B visas.
H-1B Visa program: Popular but controversial
The H-1B is a temporary (non-immigrant) visa program that allows employers to hire highly educated foreign professionals to work in "specialty occupations" requiring at least a bachelor's degree or the equivalent. According to the American Immigration Council, jobs in disciplines like mathematics, engineering, technology, and medical sciences frequently qualify. The initial duration of an H-1B visa is three years, with a maximum extension of six years. However, the program has faced criticism for taking jobs from American workers.
Annual cap for H-1B visas in US
Every year, the US government issues 65,000 H-1B visas to corporations. An additional 20,000 H-1B visas with three-year extensions are available for employees with advanced degrees. For fiscal year 2024, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) received 780,884 registrations, of which 758,994 were deemed eligible. Indians are by far the most active users of the H-1B program in the US, accounting for 73% of the nearly 442,000 H-1B employees in fiscal year 2022.
More about Ramaswamy
Ramaswamy was born to parents who immigrated to the US from Kerala and worked at a General Electric plant in Ohio. He is the founder of Roivant Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company valued at over $6.3 billion. A Harvard and Yale alum, Ramaswamy also founded Strive Asset Management, which directly competes with the world's biggest asset management firms like BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. His election campaign is centered on reducing dependence on China, "bringing back merit," and fighting the "woke."
