Speaker 1: Hi everyone, this is Dheer with from Sumit Capital and welcome back to the new video on the channel. All of you must have heard about the recent layoffs happening in the world, huge giants such as Microsoft, Google, Meta and many such companies have decreased their workforce by doing many layoffs. If we talk in the numbers, overall 1024 tech companies have laid off over 1,54,000 employees in the year 2022. Globally, over 1600 tech employees were fired in a day on average in 2023 so far. So in today's video, let's understand what it means for H-1B workers and the alternatives for the employees, those who are on H-1B visa in the United States if they are affected by the layoffs. So now, let's understand what is an H-1B visa. The H-1B visa is a type of work visa that allows foreign workers to temporarily work in the United States. It is a non-immigrant visa, meaning that it does not lead to a permanent residency or a citizenship in the United States. The H-1B visa is typically used by the companies to bring in foreign workers with specialized skills. Examples of occupations that may qualify for an H-1B visa include computer programming, engineering, architecture, mathematics, science, and medicine. To obtain an H-1B visa, an employer must first submit a petition to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services or USCIS on behalf of the foreign worker. The petition must demonstrate that the foreign worker is qualified for the job and that the employer will pay the prevailing wage for the job. Let's understand what can happen when you are on H-1B visa in the United States. Now let's say you have been laid off from the job or you have been fired. You just have 60 days as a grace period to find a new job or leave the country. H-1B visa status is at risk for thousands of families because they don't know when they will get fired or may be affected by the mass layoffs. So now let's see the temporary or the permanent solutions to these problems. Temporary solutions include B-1 or B-2 visa, F-1 visa, J-1 visa, or O-1 visa. So we'll cover these visas in detail in the further part of the video. The permanent solutions include EB-1 visa, EB-2 visa, or EB-5 visa. But we are specifically going to discuss the EB-5 visa as EB-5 visa is a true permanent green card solution because it's simple, fast, and all under your control. EB-5 visa or the Employment-Based Fifth Preference Program was created in the year 1990 by the Congress through the Immigration Act of 1990. You have to just invest $800,000 and you get a permanent green card. New Reforms and Integrity Act of 2022 allows investors to use a concurrent filing and get a EAD, which is Employment Authorization Document, within three months. And hence, H-1B to EB-5 problem is solved. So now let's see what are the problems faced by the H-1B workers in the United States. The day you get fired, you have just 60 days as a grace period. This means your H-1B visa is in status for only 60 days. After the 60 days or the grace period is over, your H-1B visa is out of status. So if you still remain in the U.S. on the visa, which is out of status for six months, it will be termed as an unlawful presence and you can face a ban of three years. If you are staying for more than 12 months in the U.S. on unlawful presence, you will face a ban of 10 years. The 60 days are started immediately after your termination and the employer is obligated to notify the same to the USCIS, which cannot be avoided. So what are the solutions to the H-1B visa? The most common solution is to get hired by a new employer within 60 days of the grace period. You need to have a valid status at the time of filing for an H-1B visa. 60 days grace period is not much of a time and as I've seen in today's time, but it was not seen until 2017. So one must really pace up once they're laid off by the employer as 60 days is not much of a time. Temporary non-immigrant visas exist and there are a wide variety of options, but it is not as simple as it seems. Temporary visa solutions include B-1 or B-2 visa. It is a temporary business visa, which can be used for six months in a year. The next is F-1 visa for the individuals who want to study in the U.S. at a qualified institution. They must be a full-time student and demonstrate that they will return home upon completing the program. The next is J-1 visa for the individuals wanting to participate in educational or cultural exchange programs. The last is EB-1 visa, so it's an employment-based first preference program. These are for people who have extraordinary abilities. But let's see the investment-based solutions. So the first is E-2 visa. It is a non-immigrant visa for those who want to enter the U.S. to manage business ventures in which they have invested considerable amounts. This model is really subjective by the U.S. CIS. And the last is EB-5 visa, which is the perfect solution for the H-1B workers. So now let's understand why EB-5 visa is a better visa. So EB-5 visa is also called as a golden visa due to its popularity. The EB-5 visa is one of the fastest ways to gain a permanent residency in the United States. It has fast processing and has no waiting list for the reserved categories after the New Reform and Integrity Act of 2022. It last, it is a family visa, so on one investment, the investor, spouse, and the children aged below 21 can get a permanent residency. So now what you should do in the current times, the H-1B visa holder or the investor must file immediately for the EB-5 visa due to its growing popularity and mass layoffs happening worldwide. Since EB-5 visa is gaining popularity daily, the reserved categories might also see visa backlogs or retrogression anytime soon. It is expected that at the end of the 2023 or 2024, the reserved categories might see retrogression. So here we come to the end of the video. How can one change its status from H-1B to EB-5 visa and become a permanent residency is explained in this video. If you have any doubts, please do let me know and you can put it on the comment section as well and we'll try to answer that. If you have any doubts or if you want to explore more, you can visit our website and check it out. Thank you and see you in the next video.