Indian American Republican Presidential aspirant Vivek Ramaswamy has announced his plans to completely overhaul the H-1B visa programme including “ending” the lottery-based system, in case he wins the 2024 Presidential elections, US news outlet Politico reported on Saturday (16 September).
According to Politico, GOP candidate Ramaswamy has vowed to “gut” the system for H-1B temporary worker visas if he wins the presidential elections. However, he added that he would replace the current lottery-based system with meritocratic admission.
Speaking to Politico, Ramaswamy said that the H-1B system is “bad for everyone involved,” and labelled the visa progamme as “indentured servitude”.
He asserted, “The lottery system needs to be replaced by actual meritocratic admission. It’s a form of indentured servitude that only accrues to the benefit of the company that sponsored an H-1B immigrant. I’ll gut it.”
In his statement to the news outlet, he also added that the U.S. needs to eliminate “chain-based migration”.
He explained, “The people who come as family members are not the meritocratic immigrants who make skills-based contributions to this country.”
Notably, the H-1B visa is a much sought-after visa programme among Indian IT professionals. It is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in tech and other specialised jobs.
In fact, this is the very system Ramaswamy has used in the past to hire high-skilled foreign workers for the pharma company that contributed significantly to his wealth.
As per media reports, between 2018 and 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved 29 applications for Ramaswamy’s former company, Roivant Sciences, to hire employees under H-1B visas.
In February 2021, Ramaswamy stepped down as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Roivant. he retained his position as the chairman of the company’s board of directors until February of this year, when he declared his candidacy for the presidency. According to corporate filings, the company and its subsidiaries, as of March 31, had 904 full-time employees, including 825 in the U.S.
When asked about the mismatch in Ramaswamy’s policy stance and his past business practices, press secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the role of a policymaker “is to do what’s right for a country overall: the system is broken and needs to be fixed.”
In a statement, she said, “Vivek believes that regulations overseeing the U.S. energy sector are badly broken, but he still uses water and electricity. This is the same.”
Earlier, during his opening remarks at the first Republican debate in Milwaukee, Ramaswamy acknowledged his own experience with immigration. He said, “My parents came to this country with no money 40 years ago. I have gone on to found multi-billion-dollar companies.”
It is important to note that his stance on H-1B visas is reminiscent of the 2016 Trump campaign. Back then, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, who had also hired a number of foreign workers under H-1B visas for his businesses, took a hardline stance on these foreign workers however, he later softened his rhetoric.
Meanwhile, the demand for H-1B visas among workers are only on rise. For fiscal year 2021, saw a jump of 60% when U.S. businesses submitted 780,884 applications for just 85,000 available slots.
Every year, the US gives 65,000 H-1B visas which are open to all and 20,000 to those with advanced US degrees.
Earlier, in July, Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi introduced a bill to propose doubling the annual intake of highly skilled foreign workers on H-1B work visas.
The bill sought to double the number of H-1B visas available annually from 65,000 to 130,000 to allow American employers. These include employment in critical technology sectors, to draw the best talent from around the world. Presently, around three-fourths of H-1B visas go to Indian professionals.
