The United States President Donald Trump has on Friday, announced his plan of some potential “changes” to the H-1B visa program, which grants temporary visas to foreigners for specialty occupations such as doctorate or technology, as well as the provision of a “path of citizenship” for highly skilled and talented visa holders.
In a tweet, the US president wrote: “H1-B (sic) holders in the United States can rest assured that changes are soon coming which will bring both simplicity and certainty to your stay, including a potential path to citizenship. We want to encourage talented and highly skilled people to pursue career options in the U.S.”
H1-B holders in the United States can rest assured that changes are soon coming which will bring both simplicity and certainty to your stay, including a potential path to citizenship. We want to encourage talented and highly skilled people to pursue career options in the U.S.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2019
According to Reuters, it was still unclear what Trump meant by “potential path to citizenship” for visa holders, who are already eligible to get sponsored by employers for a legal permanent residency, which would eligibly lead them to become a US citizen.
When asked about Trump’s move, the US citizenship and immigration services spokesperson Michael Bars presented a statement over a formal proposal for changes to the H-1B visa process in December, likely to be finalized later this year.
The proposal was designed to increase the number of H-1B beneficiaries by 16 percent or 5,340, who hold advanced degrees from top American varsities.
Bars said: “These proposed regulatory changes would help ensure more of the best and brightest workers from around the world come to America under the H-1B program.”
The former White House official in the Obama administration Doug Rand said: “The odds that a complicated new electronic processing system will be effectively launched by DHS in time for the next lottery on April 1 is low probability and has nothing to do with a potential path to citizenship.”
The announcement of the revision in H1-B visa process came after the US government partial shutdown reached to its 21st day on Friday, with no solution appearing to reopen the government in near future.