Peru's President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski holds a news conference at the conclusion of the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Summit in Lima, Peru November 20, 2016. REUTERS/Paco Chuquiure

LIMA (Reuters) - Peru has created a temporary visa that will allow thousands of Venezuelans to work and study in the country, part of a migratory policy that aims to “build bridges” and “not walls,” the Andean nation’s interior ministry said.

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s government issued 20 temporary visas to Venezuelan migrants in Peru this week. Kuczysnki, a centrist, has expressed concern about shortages of food and medicine in Venezuela, mired in a deep economic crisis.

Some 6,000 Venezuelans are expected to receive the permit, which will allow them to study, work and receive health services in Peru for a year, the interior ministry said late on Thursday.

Peru has enjoyed nearly two decades of uninterrupted economic growth and single-digit inflation, a sharp contrast to socialist-led Venezuela, where the ranks of the poor have swollen in recent years.

“We want to offer a different message on migration than what’s offered in other places. We want to build bridges that unite us and not walls to separate us,” Interior Minister Carlos Basombrio said in a statement.

The comment appeared to be a thinly veiled shot at the new U.S. government, which is traditionally an ally of Peru.

U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed a temporary entry ban on refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, and insisted that Mexico will pay for his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to curb illegal immigration.

Kuczynski, a former Wall Street banker and free-trade advocate who took office last year, has previously compared Trump’s proposed border wall to the Berlin Wall, and said he would oppose it in the United Nations.

Kuczynski and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said last week that they would stand with Mexico and seek to strengthen regional trade, in the wake of rising tensions between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Trump.</s>TODAY VENEZUELA (Reuters) Peru has created a temporary visa that will allow thousands of Venezuelans to work and study in the country, part of a migratory policy that aims to “build bridges” and “not walls,” the Andean nation’s interior ministry said, according to Reuters.

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s government issued 20 temporary visas to Venezuelan migrants in Peru this week.

Kuczysnki, a centrist, has expressed concern about shortages of food and medicine in Venezuela, mired in a deep economic crisis.

Some 6,000 Venezuelans are expected to receive the permit, which will allow them to study, work, and receive health services in Peru for a year, the interior ministry said late on Thursday.

Peru has enjoyed nearly two decades of uninterrupted economic growth and single-digit inflation, a sharp contrast to socialist-led Venezuela, where the ranks of the poor have swollen in recent years.

“We want to offer a different message on migration than what’s offered in other places. We want to build bridges that unite us and not walls to separate us,” Interior Minister Carlos Basombrio said in a statement.

The comment appeared to be a thinly veiled shot at the new US government, which is traditionally an ally of Peru.

US President Donald Trump has imposed a temporary entry ban on refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, and insisted that Mexico will pay for his proposed wall along the US-Mexican border to curb illegal immigration.

Kuczynski, a former Wall Street banker and free-trade advocate who took office last year, has previously compared Trump’s proposed border wall to the Berlin Wall, and said he would oppose it in the United Nations.

Kuczynski and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said last week that they would stand with Mexico and seek to strengthen regional trade, in the wake of rising tensions between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Trump.

Thousands of Venezuelans have left their country in recent years, as a deepening political crisis and ongoing economic dysfunction have made life there ever harder.

While the first years of this century saw Venezuela elites and educated classes depart the country, chaffing under the presidency of Hugo Chavez, since 2010 younger Venezuelans and members of the middle class have joined the ranks of the exodus.

Many Venezuelans have relocated to Colombia, and a significant number have gone to Chile, making an arduous multiday trek by bus and boat across the Amazon jungle and the mountains and rivers of the Andes.

Over the last five years, Chilean visas issued to Venezuelans have jumped from 758 to 8,381, Univision reported in September 2016.

About 5% of Venezuelan’s roughly 30 million people are thought to have left, and the outflux has undergone a “feminization” of late, seeing 67 men leave for every 100 women departing.

“I think what you see now is that there are fewer and fewer educated professionals, younger people, who are opting to stay, or even considering opting to stay,” Alejandro Velasco, a professor at New York University, told Business Insider late last year.

“The tipping point basically, I think, has been reached where opportunities outside [the country] are far easier to come by and certainly better to imagine that opportunities inside.”

Article originally appeared on Today Venezuela and is republished here with permission.</s>Peru has created a temporary visa that will allow thousands of Venezuelans to work and study in the country, part of a migratory policy that aims to "build bridges" and "not walls," the Andean nation's interior ministry said, according to Reuters. Kuczysnki, a centrist, has expressed concern about shortages of food and medicine in Venezuela, mired in a deep economic crisis.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Silicon Alley Insider.</s>H4 visa holders may stop getting EAD if Trump issues Executive Order

NEW YORK: The hard-fought success almost two years for those on the dreaded H4 visa – dependent spouses of H-1B visa holders – when some of them were finally allowed to get work authorization after successfully applying for an EAD card, may again be grounded.

Numerous reports have surfaced recently that President Donald Trump may issue an Executive Order to ban the issuing of EAD (Employment Authorization Document) to H4 visa holders.

Ninety percent of H4 visa holders are women, and almost 80% of the 125,000 H4 visas issued in 2015 – the year they were allowed to apply for work authorization – were granted to Indian nationals.

Even after the rule was passed in May, 2015 for H4 visa holders to get work authorization, only some of them benefited: only those whose spouse working on an H-1B visa had got an approved Form I-140. The rest had to wait their due turn to be allowed to work in the US.

The strongest evidence of impending doom for H4 visa holders came from the White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who said at a press briefing on Monday: “With respect to H1-Bs and other visas, it’s part of a larger immigration reform effort that the president will continue to talk about through executive order and through working with Congress.”

He then added, for emphasis, to specifically add the work spouses in there: “whether it’s that or the spousal visa or other types of visas I think there’s an overall need to look at all these programs,” referring to “a lot of action on immigration.”

“You’ll see both through executive action and through comprehensive legislative measures a way to address immigration as a whole and the visa program,” he added.

The plight of H4 visa holders who languish for years without the ability to work, has been well documented, in the past. It’s often been referred to as a humanitarian issue.

Sabrina Balgamwalla, an assistant law professor at the University of North Dakota, wrote in a paper on spousal visa holders titled ‘Bride and Prejudice’: “When a wife enters the United States on a dependent spouse visa, she enters at the wish of her husband. Her dependent immigration status allows her husband to control her ability to live in the United States and all rights that stem from that status.”

Divya Ravindranath, a PhD student at Washington University in St Louis, writing of the plight of H4 spouses, in Economic & Political Weekly, noted: “Women interviewed for this study used phrases like “loss of identity,” “complete dependence,” “lack of confidence,” “forced unemployment,” “a nightmare” to describe their experiences and the implications of the H4 visa. For many women, the idea of being “unemployed” after securing high educational qualifications and prior work experience has been akin to living an anonymous life. In the absence of professional opportunities women complained about being wrapped in domestic responsibilities and moments of self-doubt, with no avenues for intellectual or social interactions…the H4 visa has taken away more than the “money-making capacity of H4 spouses —it also suppresses their ability to meaningfully function in society by restricting their ability to participate in daily transactions with third parties.”

Despite this, there has been plenty of ire against granting EAD to H4 visa holders.

In early 2015, the Immigration Reform Law Institute filed a lawsuit in D.C. District Court against the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of Save Jobs USA — a group that is comprised specifically of former Edison employees who lost their positions to H-1B visa holders. Their target was H4 visa holders.

The Immigration Reform Law Institute claimed work permits to H-4 visa holders negatively impacted the former Edison workers who lost their jobs to foreign workers.

That rhetoric was carried forward by Sen. Jeff Sessions and by other anti-immigration critics. Sessions, when confirmed as the Attorney General of the US, will be in position to implement many of his views into law, either through Executive Actions by President Trump or by convincing members of Congress to bring in legislation to that effect.</s>ISLAMABAD: The US administration has not made any changes in its visa policy towards Pakistan, said a spokesman for the US Embassy in Islamabad on Thursday, dismissing the reports as rumors that the country might be added to the list of countries whose citizens have been banned from travelling to US.

He told Geo News that visa policy for Pakistan remains unchanged as the new administration has not issued any special instructions in this regard. He said the embassy issued US visas to Pakistanis as a matter of routine today.

President Donald Trump last week signed an executive order which banned citizens of seven countries from entering US as part of immigration control, triggering a travel chaos and a wave of protests in and outside the United States.

US visa policy for Pakistan unchanged: embassy was posted in National of TheNews International - https://www.thenews.com.pk on February 02, 2017 and was last updated on February 02, 2017. This news story is related to Latest/183540-US-visa-policy-for-Pakistan-unchanged-embassy/ - breaking news, latest news, pakistan ne. Permanent link to the news story "US visa policy for Pakistan unchanged: embassy " is https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/183540-US-visa-policy-for-Pakistan-unchanged-embassy.</s>Shalabh Kumar assures Trump will not take Executive Action on H-1B visa workers. But what about H4 and F1 visa holders?

NEW YORK: Illinois-based entrepreneur Shalabh ‘Shalli’ Kumar, an Indian-American donor with close ties to the Trump administration, and who has got effusive praise from President Donald Trump for campaigning to get Hindu votes out for the Republican Party, has dismissed a slew of rumors of an imminent Executive Action to curb the prospects of H-1B workers in the US.

“There will be need of more H-1B visas. The number of people on H-1B from India is certainly going to increase,” Kumar, the founder of the Republican Hindu Coalition, told reporters at a news conference, in Washington, DC, on Wednesday.

Kumar, who is in contention to be the next US Ambassador to India, tried to allay fears that the White House and Trump will put out damning orders which would harm the chances of skilled Indian workers who plan to emigrate to the US. On the contrary, he claimed, as the US economy gets stronger, it would need more workers, especially in the IT arena.

Kumar, however, did support cleaning up the H-1B visa system, which has seen several cases of systemic fraud by top Indian IT service companies, as well as middlemen in the system.

In the past week, several reports based on ‘leaked’ documents from the White House circles have surfaced, which suggest Trump is assessing how to best frame an Executive Order to ensure that American citizens and legal workers in the US get priority first in hiring. He has also spoken about rampant visa fraud and abuse by companies who use H-1B visa, and L-1 visa workers, on the campaign trail.

However, reports by The Wall Street Journal, Vox and Bloomberg News, based on some ‘leaked’ documents that were circulated within the White House, which seemed to be framing how best to go about issuing an Executive Order to curb legal immigration, made it clear that the Trump administration wants to target H-1B visa workers. And worse, there’s reasonable concern that this may also expand to spouses of H-1B workers, on the H4 visa. In May, 2015, some H4 visa holders were allowed to apply for Employment Authorization Card (EAD). The EAD allows the recipient to work without any restrictions.

The White House press secretary Sean Spicer sounded an ominous warning at a press briefing on Monday: “With respect to H1-Bs and other visas, it’s part of a larger immigration reform effort that the president will continue to talk about through executive order and through working with Congress.”

Spicer mentioned spouses too: “Whether it’s that or the spousal visa or other types of visas I think there’s an overall need to look at all these programs,” he said.

To another query, Spicer added: “You’ll see both through executive action and through comprehensive legislative measures a way to address immigration as a whole and the visa program.”

The issue of restrictions on visa holders is of real concern.

Kumar is probably right that Trump may not pass any Executive Action on H-1B visa workers. The reason for that is simple enough: there is bipartisan support to curb the influx of cheap labor from India by IT outsourcing companies like Infosys, TCS and others. Legislators are keen to make it a level playing field for American and legal workers in the US. Two bills, by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, and Democrat Rep. Zoe Lofgren, both from California, want to raise the minimum salary threshold and include a Master’s degree for new H-1B workers – to as much as $130,000. That, if implemented, would see applications for H-1B workers, plummet. The minimum salary requirement for an IT worker on an H-1B visa, at present, is $60,000.

However, the question that comes up is what would be the fate of existing H-1B workers, especially those who make less than six figures. Going forward, would their petitions for extension of work visa, and also Green Card, be accepted?

And, importantly, while Trump may not hit out against H-1B workers for now, knowing that it’s in the pipeline anyway and might soon become law in Congress, he could target the H4 visa workers who have an EAD, and also F1 visa students, some of whom in the STEM fields have 36 months of Optional Practical Training (OPT). Some of the leaked documents suggest that Trump might cut that OPT time from three years to only 12 months.

That would be devastating for students who graduate and then look to see if they can get sponsorship for H-1B visa, and then stay on in the US. For example, if they graduate in May, then within a year they would have to get a company to sponsor them, and even so, would have to leave the country, without knowing if they get approved or not. The filing season for H-1B workers start April 1. Approved workers begin work in August/September.

It’s important that Kumar, who has close ties to Trump, guide and give suggestions to the administration, to not harm the chances of H4 visa holders to work and thrive in this country. If an EAD is taken away, it could mean thousands of families suffering financially, mortgages going asunder, wilting of relationships, family strife.</s>WASHINGTON: Pakistan has warned that imposing visa ban on its citizens will be counter-productive as it would leave negative impacts on efforts for regional peace.

“Pakistan is a very important country in South Asia and its role cannot be ignored by any country,” Pakistan’s visiting Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said here.

The minister, who earlier attended the National Prayer Breakfast hosted by President Donald Trump, said a ban on Pakistan will be harmful for enforcer.

Although Pakistan is not included in the list of seven Muslim countries facing US visa ban, a top White House official did not rule out such possibility in future when the programme will be reviewed.

Ahsan Iqbal applauded Trump’s speech at the annual event in which the US president vowed to protect religious liberty. He hoped that the US, Pakistan ties will grow further in future.

To a question about the possibility of Pakistan being included in the list of countries hit by US immigration curbs, the minister was confident that Pakistanis would not be affected by visa restrictions.

The minister refused to comment when asked whether the arrest of Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed was linked to country’s efforts to appease the US administration. However, sources in the Pakistan embassy said the US authorities have not given any assurance to the country on visa issues.

When contacted, US policy experts on South Asia said the Trump administration will push for extreme vetting of Pakistani citizens applying for US visa but may stop short of imposing a total ban.

“My sense is that for now, Trump will not be adding Pakistan to the list of banned countries. I imagine he will continue to push for more aggressive vetting, as he had suggested earlier on,” Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Programme and senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre, told The News.

“If we’ve learned anything about Trump over his first few days as president, it’s that he does exactly what he says he will. He is truly a man of his word. So if he hasn’t said he will be adding Pakistan to the list, then he likely won’t do it - at least for now,” he added.

When asked about house arrest of Hafiz Saeed, Kugelman said he would not be surprised “if Pakistan’s decision was based at least in part on Trump’s visa ban.”

“I imagine Pakistan may have wanted to show Trump and his administration that Pakistan is capable of acting against terrorists, so as to minimise the chances that Pakistan would be put on the banned list,” he said.

Kugelman said plenty of Pakistanis, including Imran Khan, have said they don’t care if they’re added to the banned list. “But let’s face it - Much of Pakistan’s political class and the elite certainly do not want to be put on it,” he added.

US visa ban will be counterproductive, says Ahsan was posted in National of TheNews International - https://www.thenews.com.pk on February 04, 2017 and was last updated on February 04, 2017. This news story is related to Print/183884-US-visa-ban-will-be-counterproductive-says-Ahsan/ - breaking news, latest news, pakistan ne. Permanent link to the news story "US visa ban will be counterproductive, says Ahsan" is https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/183884-US-visa-ban-will-be-counterproductive-says-Ahsan.</s>Infosys Technologies employees move through the headquarters during a break in Bangalore, India.

Dubai: A proposed law that could limit Indian immigration to the US shook Indian tech companies yesterday, hitting stock prices hard.

The proposed bill on the H1-B visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers, is expected to have an adverse impact on hiring plans of IT firms, including their financials. The legislation calls for doubling the minimum salary of H1-B visa holders to $130,000 from the current $60,000. India got 72% of the H1-B visas issued last year.

The bill, expected to be signed by President Donald Trump, would make it difficult for firms like Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services to use the programme to replace American staff with foreign workers, including from India, with lower wages.

“A hike in the H1-B visa cost will have significant impact on the financials...,” Mumbai-based Angel Broking said. “Depending on the companies, they could easily witness around 60-70 per cent rise in the salaries of the H1-B visa dependent workforce and hence have significant impact on the net profit of the companies,” the brokerage said.

On a single trading day yesterday, the IT majors lost Rs330 billion or nearly $4.4 billion in market value, after their shares slumped between 1-4.5 per cent.

New Delhi yesterday said it has conveyed its concerns to the US over the proposed bill.

What is an H1-B visa?

H1-B is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Technology companies depend on it for hiring tens of thousands of employees each year.</s>The proposed bill on the H1-B visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers, is expected to have an adverse impact on hiring plans of IT firms, including their financials. The legislation calls for doubling the minimum salary of H1-B visa holders to $130,000 from the current $60,000. India got 72% of the H1-B visas issued last year.
Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski's government creates a temporary visa for thousands of Venezuelans whose country is mired in a deep economic crisis. Visa holders will be able to study, work, and receive health services in Peru for a year. "This is part of our migratory policy that aims to build bridges not walls", says Interior Minister Carlos Basombrio.