Rejections of the US H1B Visa reaches an all-time high

As per data released by a US-based research foundation, the number of rejections of H1B Visas for Indian applicants has reached an all-time high.

The Trump Govt. has tightened the H1B Visa rules and has been pushing for more jobs and better wages for the American workers. As a result, India’s big four IT service companies- Wipro, HCL Technologies, TCS and Infosys have seen almost half of their H1B applications rejected in the past year.

A report has been released by the National Foundation for American Policy from data sourced from the USCIS. As per the report, the rejection rate for TCS has gone up from 6% in 2015 to 37% in the first quarter of 2019. For Infosys, the rejection rate has gone up from just 2% in 2015 to an astounding 57% in 2019. For HCL too, the rejection rate has increased from 2% in 2015 to 43% in the first quarter of 2019.

Visa Rejections
Company	FY-15 (Oct 14-Sep 15)	FY-19 (Oct 18-Dec 18)
Wipro	7%	62%
Infosys	2%	57%
HCL America	2%	43%
TCS	6%	37%

Year	H1B Rejections	H1B approved after RFE
FY 2015	4.3%	83.2%
FY 2019 (Q1-3)	16.1%	62.7%

Increase in Request for Evidence (RFE)

The RFE for Wipro has increased from 7% in 2015 to 62% in 2019.

Shivendra Singh, VP of Nasscom, said that the number of RFEs has been extremely high. The high rejection rates and RFEs are affecting the ability of Indian IT companies to service clients in the US. It is also making the whole process much more expensive, as quoted by The Economic Times.

Mr Singh said that Indian IT companies work with more than 75% of the Fortune 500 companies thereby making the US economy more competitive. With the rejection rates soaring to an all-time high, this is hurting the Indian IT companies. An increasing number of RFEs mean more paperwork and thus increase the cost for Indian companies.

Data released by the USCIS also shows a rise in RFEs and visa rejections. In 2019, the initial denial rate was 16.1%. The percentage of petitions approved with RFEs was 62.7%. In contrast, the percentage of petitions approved with RFE in 2015 was 83.2%.

L1 Visas, an intra-company transfer visa are also seeing a high rejection rate. The percentage of L1 Visas approved with RFE has dropped from 53% in 2015 to 50.7% in 2019.  

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