Demand Slows For H1B Visas

Vipul Sharma, a software engineer and U.S. patent holder, works at the leading edge of computer system innovation. He’s also subject to the bureaucratic pitfalls of U.S. immigration law.

Sharma, 30, uses artificial intelligence tools and applies them to Internet user data to try to predict patterns in online behavior. It’s a new field called machine learning, one he works at in his job at San Francisco events startup Eventbrite.

Yet despite his qualifications as an engineer and scientist, the University of Houston graduate was almost shut out of the U.S. job market.

Several years ago, while in his native India for a relative’s wedding, he was informed by an immigration attorney that the U.S. had changed its rules for Indians holding a certain type of guest work visa known as an H1B.

Vipul, who was working at another startup at the time, was advised to travel to a third country before attempting to get back into the U.S., to avoid a lengthy delay that could have cost him his job. At the same time, his friends and fellow engineers urged him to stay and work in India.

“I thought about going back, about staying back,” Sharma said.

But he believed the chance to work in the U.S. was worth the hassle.

“What we’re doing today is at least a year ahead of what they’re doing in India,” he said. “The business culture here promotes the most innovation.”

Whether the U.S. can maintain its status as the mecca for foreign innovators, however, is growing more uncertain.