When a person from another country is looking to work, on a temporary basis, in the U.S., one thing that can matter significantly for them is what nonimmigrant visa they might be able to qualify for. If the person is looking to work in a specialty occupation, one visa they may have eligibility for is the H-1B visa.
The rules related to eligibility and the application process for this type of specialty worker visa are quite complex. So, whatever country they are from, when a person is looking into the possibility of working in the U.S. on an H-1B visa, they may want to get in touch with an attorney skilled in U.S. employment immigration law for guidance.
H-1B visa holders come from a wide range of different countries. However, there are certain countries such workers are particularly likely to be from. This can be seen in federal statistics on H-1B visa petition approvals for fiscal year 2015.
According to this data, that year, a large majority of the beneficiaries of approved H-1B petitions were from India. Individuals with India as their place of birth made up 70.9 of all beneficiaries.
In a distant second was China, with 9.7 percent of beneficiaries being born from that country. Canada took third place, with workers with Canada as their place of birth making up 1.3 percent of beneficiaries.
As a note, these were the same three places these three countries held in fiscal year 2014 when it comes to H-1B visas.
So, workers from these countries who are thinking about working in the U.S. might be particularly impacted by changes and developments when it comes to the laws and policies surrounding H-1B visas. One wonders what kinds of things will happen with this visa program in upcoming months and years.