Trump meets Modi: visas of discord

US President Donald Trump meets for the first time the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi against a backdrop of controversy over H1B visas for foreign workers and Indian engineers in particular.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, and Sundar Pichai, boss of Google, proved that Indian emigration was a chance for Silicon Valley.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will probably not mention these two examples when he discusses with Donald Trump the restrictions on immigration policy advocated by the President of the United States. The Future of H1B Visas - reserved for skilled workers - should be one of the major subjects of the first meeting in Washington between the Indian Prime Minister and the White House tenant on Monday 26 June.

Three bills against these visas

Since taking office, Donald Trump has taken these visas in the name of his vision of "America First " for the job market. His rhetoric is to say that the jobs granted to foreigners receiving these work permits could be returned to American citizens.

As a result of this position, the H1B visa program has never been so badly attackedsince its inception in the 1990s. Three proposals to limit the use of these skilled foreign workers were tabled in the US Congress in a little more Of four months.Donald Trump, himself, signed an executive order to make the process of obtaining the title more binding, while the number of refusals by the US administration has skyrocketed.

Donald Trump has filed a prosecution case to justify this legislative assault against a program that currently benefits just under 900,000 foreigners in the United States. The main argument of the Republican administration is that nearly 80% of these workers are paid less than the median wage, which handicaps the local candidates. The White House also claims that the system of allocating these visas - the lottery - is being hijacked by large IT service delivery groups that submit tens of thousands of applications for the lion's share of visas. The Republicans even accuse the Indian societies Infosys, Tata and Cognizant of indulging in these practices.

In India, the anti-H1B offensive was seen as a direct attack on the country. It should be noted that of the 275,000 applications for professional visas accepted in 2015 , 195,247 were from Indian nationals. For Narendra Modi, defending this program is therefore a matter of national importance. The giants of IT service delivery generate $ 60 billion in tax revenues for the Indian economy.

Silicon Valley allies

The Indian Prime Minister will argue that Indian groups are, in fact, good for employment in the United States. Infosys announced in May that it plans to hire 10,000 American employees in the coming years .

But the main allies of Narendra Modi come from Silicon Valley. Tech giants are the major users of skilled Indian labor. Fifteen percent of Facebook's workforce in the United States is Indians, who receive an H1B visa. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of the social networking giant, founded the pressure group FWD.us to defend the right to resort to foreign workers.Several US companies in the industry - including Microsoft and Google - have indirectly responded to Donald Trump's accusations by using only foreign workers for very specific positions where there is no competition with US candidates.

The subject is politically so sensitive for Donald Trump and Narendra Modi that some experts think that the two interlocutors will avoid approaching it to focus on less delicate themes like ... climate and protectionism American.

But the main allies of Narendra Modi come from Silicon Valley. Tech giants are the major users of skilled Indian labor. Fifteen percent of Facebook's workforce in the United States is Indians, who receive an H1B visa. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of the social networking giant, founded the pressure group FWD.us to defend the right to resort to foreign workers.Several US companies in the industry - including Microsoft and Google - have indirectly responded to Donald Trump's accusations by using only foreign workers for very specific positions where there is no competition with US candidates.

The subject is politically so sensitive for Donald Trump and Narendra Modi that some experts think that the two interlocutors will avoid approaching it to focus on less delicate themes like ... climate and protectionism American.