Indian talent chooses Canada over US due to obsolete visa policy

THE much sought-after Indian talent now prefers Canada over the US due to the country's outdated immigration policies, particularly on H-1B visas, immigration and policy experts told US lawmakers.

The experts blamed the per-country quota on issuing the employment-based Green Card or permanent residency for this new trend. They even urged the US Congress to act fast to prevent this brain drain.

Without Congressional action, the total backlog for all three employment-based categories for Indians would increase from the current estimate of 915,497 individuals to about 2,195,795 by 2030, executive director of National Foundation for American Policy Stuart Anderson said.

"We should let that number sink in: Within a decade, more than 2 million people will be waiting in line for years or even decades for employment-based green cards," he submitted in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee-Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship.

Anderson added that highly skilled foreign nationals and students are preferring Canada over the US.

"This has happened in response to how difficult it is to work in the United States in H-1B status or gain permanent residence, and the comparative ease of international students and foreign nationals working in temporary status and then acquiring permanent residence in Canada," he said.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations.

According to a study of US government data by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), the number of Indian students enrolled in graduate-level computer science and engineering at US universities declined by more than 25 per cent between 2016-17 and 2018-19 academic years.

On the other hand, Indian students attending Canadian universities rose from 76,075 in 2016 to 172,625 in 2018, as per the Canadian Bureau for International Education.

This trend indicates that Canada's immigration policies are much better than America's, Anderson said.

"The world has changed since 1990, the US immigration policy has not,” he added.

He further said that the Canadian government has made it increasingly easy for employers to attract and retain talent, while the cap on high-skilled temporary visas block foreign applicants from working in the US.

Jennifer Young, the CEO of Technology Councils of North America, said that Canadian companies are allowed to hire foreign talent in just four weeks, pre-pandemic.

Meanwhile, the US immigration system is paper-based that delays the process, she said.

“With more than 100,000 H-1B cap submissions denied annually, the United States has turned away millions of qualified, highly-skilled, and often US-educated individuals who are going to other countries to contribute to their economy,” Young said.