New Delhi: There’s little doubt that the temporary worker (H1B) visa programme of the US has been abused on multiple counts over the decades. Primarily, these have involved hiring cheaper H1B workers in place of more expensive American workers, faking of credentials and educational qualifications by applicants to bag an H1B visa, or even hiring H1B workers in jobs that don’t necessarily demand high skills. There are enough documented cases of all these instances for anyone to challenge their prevalence. The lottery method of issuing H1B visas is a seriously-flawed approach to a system that ought to filter in the most skilled workers.

Therefore, it is easy to why the American people are outraged by the abuse of H1B visa and the influx of immigrant tech workers. It is almost certain that the new Trump administration will tweak the H1B visa criteria in a manner that plugs the loopholes being exploited by employers. Among the new measures, higher minimum wage for H1B workers and a scoring system to identify genuinely highly-skilled workers could be introduced.

But can President-elect Trump do so without closing the tap of talent that fuels America’s tech supremacy is the million-dollar question. After all, while H1B visas may have been abused, they are also the reason why the US was able to create multiple trillion-dollar tech behemoths and thousands of other valuable start-ups, solidifying America’s position as the global leader in innovation.

The American angst over H1B visas is a manifestation of complex socio-economic issues gripping the US. If one were to put a finger on the problem, then it........

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