United States is considering caps on H-1B work visas to about 15% of the quota for nations that force foreign companies to store data locally.
The warning comes as trade dispute between the US and India has resulted in a recent tit-for-tat tariff actions. India has imposed higher tariffs on some U.S. goods from Sunday in an apparent response to Washington’s withdrawal of a key trade privilege for New Delhi, and a higher tariffs on its steel and aluminum export.
According to Reuters, two senior Indian government officials said on Wednesday they were briefed last week on a U.S. government plan to cap H-1B visas issued each year to Indians at between 10% and 15% of the annual quota. There is no current country-specific limit on the 85,000 H-1B work visas granted each year, and an estimated 70% go to Indians.
The plan to restrict the popular H-1B visa program, under which skilled foreign workers are brought to the United States each year, comes days ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to New Delhi.
Officials said they were told the plan was linked to the global push for “data localization”, in which a country places restrictions on data as a way to gain better control over it and potentially curb the power of international companies. U.S. firms have lobbied hard against data localization rules around the world. India last year mandated foreign firms to store their payments data “only in India” for supervision, reported Reuters.
“The proposal is that any country that does data localization, then it (H-1B visas) would be limited to about 15% of the quota. It’s being discussed internally in the U.S. government,” the person said.
Most affected by any such caps would be India’s more than $150 billion IT sector which uses H-1B visas to fly engineers and developers to service clients in the United States, its biggest market.
