H1, H1b, L1, Investor Visa Issues That Employers, Workers & Their Families Face and How to Navigate the Same

It is not an uncommon scenario in foreign countries when in regular conversations, someone around mentions the topic of non-immigrant work visas with a tone laced with utter admiration and hope. And it goes both ways. If consulted with any American immigration consultant, immigrants have proven to be beneficial for their economy too.

These Employment concerns non-immigrant and immigrant visas give the applicants an opportunity of lawful residency in the United States, but in immigrant visas, one can apply for citizenship in the U.S. after five years of stay owing to employment purposes.

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H1, H1B, and L1 are non-immigrant work visas, while the Investor visas are immigrant ones.

As per the views of the experts, the core backdrop of the employment and investor visa is the motive behind it. They might come with substantial benefits in the picture but blatantly assessing these visas are often a strategy of competition in the companies. Since the work and investor visas focus on the aspect it is associated with; therefore the programs are frequently abused by those who provide them.

Getting an H1, H1B, L1, or Investor Visa might not involve a complicated process, but alongside the pros, there are an equal number of cons to it that have been faced by the people in reality but hardly are talked about.

One of the most inherent problems, especially in H1 and H1B visas which have been mentioned quite often, is the uncertainty of further allowance in the country if left for a different purpose. And even though there is convenience in procuring the visa, the inconvenience of carrying the passport and visa at all places to establish the legitimacy of livelihood lingers on. The visas are only valid if the person continues working for the company mentioned in the petition; therefore, it puts a massive bar on any routes of passive income or even changing job spaces.

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People immigrate to developed countries with a desire to thrive and gain fulfillment. But when there is a liability of earning more revenue than a minimum salary requirement in the visa, it acts as pressure because of the time limit. Additionally, the person has to maintain a salary limit and pay a sum for social security to the U.S. government with no benefits of a naturalized citizen.

And for the ones with families, the H1 and H1B visa acts as a greater inconvenience due to no allowance of work facilities for the other family members. To summarize, there is not enough mobile liberty for immigration under an H1B visa.

Under the Trump administration, the decline of L1 visas had taken a surge too.

On a general note, the majority of work visa immigrants who apply for green cards face a backlog.

When Congress had issued a 7% limit per country, it left a burden on prospective employment-based immigrants from India, China, and the Philippines. And with investor-based visas like EB-3, the Comprehensive Ranking System had stated that the new beneficiaries from India would have to wait for almost 27 years to receive green card citizenship.

The problem appurtenant to this wait and backlog is that there will be professionals who are potential immigrants waiting with the hope of citizenship for perhaps a more suitable livelihood after devoting their resources and labor to the benefit of the U.S. while their family will bear the risk of being discarded from the country at any given minute.

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The new U.S. Citizenship Act by the Biden administration is expected to curtail the waiting period for the green card within ten years through added provisions.

The "Buy American, Hire American" theory has hindered the sense of democratic economy in several ways. Immigration critics had been stuck to the debate of how the worker and investor visas are a potential threat to the development of the States in itself - precisely to the youth of the States. During the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, when the count of employment and investor immigrants had dropped down to a great extent, needless to say, the demands of the critics were met indirectly. But the status of the economy had proved how without the convenience of worker and investor-based visas resulting in a lack of immigrant workers can bring forth an incurable loss in the industries in terms of labor count and productivity. Without labor benefits integrated with worker and investor visas, individuals will not be inclined to dedicate enough of themselves to the welfare of the economy of a different country. And after years of hard work, many workers deserve respectful citizenship either for further ambitions or convenience.

In my opinion, to enrich the process of navigation of the non immigrant H1, H1B and L1 visas and the investor visas.

There should be longer periods of certainty included in the visa terms.

There should be a certain liberty linked to the visa petitions in terms of income allowance from other valid sources , if necessary , with a No Objection Certificate from the main source of employment.

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There should be allowance for the spouses of the visa applicants to work conveniently right away without the complications of the PERM process.

There should be an assurance relating to entry in the country if left due to certain circumstances like that for a lawful citizen.

The waiting period for a Citizenship application should be minimized.

The limits on the allocation of green cards to individuals of other countries should be extended to strengthen the status of the immigrants.

Naresh M. Gehi is an Indo-US Lawyer and the Director of Gehis Immigration and International Legal Services based in Mumbai, and is an expert in complex Immigration strategies, foreign investments, optimization of tax benefits, cross-border investment and tax issues. All views/ opinions expressed in the article are of the author.