US to review 55 million American visas worldwide; five million held by Indians

The TOI correspondent from Washington: The Trump administration on Thursday introduced a complete review of all 55 million energetic US visas held internationally to determine potential violations that might lead to revocation and deportation of overseas nationals.In a big escalation of immigration enforcement aimed purportedly at defending US nationwide safety and public security, the State Department mentioned all US visa holders, together with vacationers, college students, employees, and enterprise vacationers, are topic to “continuous vetting” to determine grounds for ineligibility, together with visa overstays, legal exercise, threats to public security, or hyperlinks to terrorism.Also learn: Indian pupil arrivals to US crash 46% in July: Here’s the way it may price American college studentsThe review course of contains inspecting social media accounts, regulation enforcement and immigration information from visa holders’ residence international locations, and any violations of US regulation. New necessities launched earlier this 12 months mandate that privateness settings on digital units be disabled throughout visa interviews, facilitating information assortment. The administration has additionally secured entry to hundreds of thousands of immigrant tax information from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to examine for violations. Should violations be discovered, visas can be revoked, and people already within the US could face deportation. Additionally, the State Department is contemplating a proposal for visa candidates to publish bonds of up to $15,000 to enter the U.S., additional tightening entry protocols.
An estimated five million Indian residents are believed to be holding energetic US nonimmigrant visas, together with visas for tourism, enterprise, and training, resembling B1/B2 customer visas, F-1 pupil visas, and H-1B work visas. At least a million of them are already within the US. The review expands a vetting course of that originally centered on college students concerned in pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel actions on campuses, which the administration controversially labeled as selling “anti-American” or “antisemitic ideologies.” Since January this 12 months, when the Trump dispensation took workplace, the State Department has revoked over 6000 pupil visas, citing causes resembling overstays, assault, driving below the affect, and, in some 300 circumstances, alleged help for terrorism.In a associated transfer, Secretary of State Marco Rubio additionally introduced a right away pause on issuing employee visas for business truck drivers following a horrific accident in Florida during which an Indian Sikh who entered the US illegally made a reckless U-turn leading to three deaths. The driver, recognized as Harjinder Singh, later flunked English fluency and street signal exams, answering solely two out of 12 questions appropriately in English and figuring out just one out of 4 freeway indicators proven to him.“The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers,” Rubio mentioned. The Sikhs (*55*) Action Committee (SikhsPAC) estimated in 2018 that round 150,000 Sikhs work within the US trucking business, with 90% (roughly 135,000) being drivers.