United States President Donald Trump’s resolve to create more jobs for Americans has stoked anxiety among Information Technology (IT) professionals in India. Many in the country’s lucrative IT sector typically aspire to be shipped to the US on an H1B visa for better work opportunities. But their hopes are set to be dashed as Trump is expected to curb the allocation of H1B visas through an executive order. The European Union said it is ready to accommodate more Indian IT professionals and denounced any form of protectionism in global trade.
Nearly 300,000 Indian-Americans are likely to be impacted by the Trump administration’s sweeping plans that put the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation.
Pushing for deeper trade ties with India, a delegation of European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs also expressed “regret” over failure by both sides to resume the stalled dialogue to firm the long-pending EU-India trade and investment pact.
“Europe is open for people with high demand. Indian people are highly skilled. Our IT sector would not have been successful if we did not have skilled professionals from India,” he said.
Soon after taking over last month, Trump had decided to overhaul the work visa programmes like the H-1B and L1, a move that will adversely hit the lifeline of Indian tech firms and professionals in the US.
Pressing for early resumption of negotiations for the EU -India Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA), McAllister said the delegation urged the Indian leaders to resume the talks as the pact will significantly boost two-way trade.
“We deeply regret that we are not being able to move ahead. We will use the visit to call for resumption of talks for the agreement,” he told reporters.
President Donald Trump has laid the groundwork for potentially deporting millions of undocumented immigrants by issuing new guidance that drastically broadens the ways in which federal immigration laws should be enforced.
“The Department no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in an enforcement memo.
“Department personnel have full authority to arrest or apprehend an alien whom an immigration officer has probable cause to believe is in violation of the immigration laws,” it said.
