3,200 H1-B visas were issued to Irish citizens between 2010 and 2015.
Spouses of immigrant workers granted specialist visas to work in the United States will be prevented from getting jobs in the country under new plans from the Trump administration.
In a statement on Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that a rule introduced by former president Barack Obama would be done away with in light of an executive order signed by current president Donald Trump in April of this year.
The H1-B visa allows US companies to employ graduate level workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialised fields.
Enabling eligible applicants to remain in the United States for a maximum period of six years, it has been of most benefit to Irish people working in the tech industry in recent years.
Current immigration law in the US allows for a total of 85,000 new H-1B visas to be made available each government fiscal year, including 65,000 new H-1B visas for overseas workers.
In 2015, Barack Obama introduced a rule that granted spouses of immigrant workers on H1-B visas who were waiting on green cards eligibility to work using H-4 dependent visas.
Now, that rule has been done away with, with the Department of Homeland Security saying it was in light of a ‘Buy American, Hire American’ executive order signed by Donald Trump in April.
Furthermore, the Department of Homeland Security also signalled a review of the occupations that are currently eligible for the H1-B visa in order to “increase focus on truly obtaining the best and brightest foreign nationals”.
According to a report in The Irish Times earlier this year, an average of 640 H1-B visas are provided to Irish workers in the IT industry every year; the same report warned that proposed changes to the visa programme could have devastating consequences for Irish workers and start-up companies in the US.
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