United States Reforms Rules To Attract And Retain H1B & F1 Visa Holders

In view of reforming the immigration rules, the United States have proposed several tones of changes which will show its impact on F-1 and H1B visas in order to attract more foreign skilled people working for the nation, with the recent changes the professionals from countries like India, China and other global nations which are passionate about working in The Americas will be benefited.

The major changes of these reforms include:

• Providing work authorization for the spouses of certain H-1B visa holders in accordance with to their skills.
• A 17-month extension for Optional Practical Training (OPT) for students who are holding F-1 (the visa issued for international students).
• Allowing part-time study or work opportunities for spouses of F-1 students.
• Allowing professors and researchers who proved to be the best to present a broader scope of evidence of academic achievement.

Further more, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that USCIS is going to launch ‘Entrepreneurs in Residence’ initiative with an Information Summit in Silicon Valley, CA on February 22, which will allow high level representatives who belong to entrepreneurial community, federal government agencies and academia in discussing on how to maximize current immigration laws and its potential to attract more foreign entrepreneurial talent.

Earlier to this in August 2011, DHS is making efforts to issue “StartUp Visa” for budding foreign entrepreneurs who wants to promote or start up their businesses in United States, and also enables “stapling” green cards to the diplomas of certain foreign-born graduates in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, which all together could help up the growth in creating more opportunities, new investments and new businesses in the country and in further helps in fixing the broken immigration system and meets national security and economic needs.