Thaindian News

By Arun Kumar
Washington, July 7 (IANS) Indian professionals took the largest one-third piece of the H1B visa pie in 2009 as Indians made up the second largest group of people making the US their temporary home.

Accounting for one-tenth of non-immigrant residents in the US, 364,757 Indians were only second to the Mexicans who made up 11.7 percent at 403,793, but 123,002 H1B visa holders from India gave them the largest 36.3 percent share among professionals.

Resident non-immigrant admissions from India actually declined from 425,826 (11.5 percent) as the total decreased 6.8 percent from 3.7 million in 2008 to 3.4 million in 2009, according to the annual flow report issued by the Department of Homeland Security.

H1B admissions from India too declined from 154,726 (37.8 percent) as the total decreased 17 percent from 409,619 in 2008 to 339,243 in 2009, but student admissions rose 3.8 percent from 2008 to 2009, reflecting an increase in academic student entries (F1).

The leading countries of citizenship for resident non-immigrant admissions to the US in 2009 were Mexico (12 percent), India (11 percent), Japan (6.6 percent), Canada (6.4 percent), China (5.8 percent), Britain (5.6 percent), and South Korea (5.6 percent).

These seven countries accounted for more than 50 percent of resident non-immigrant admissions to the US.

From 2008 to 2009, decreases in resident admissions occurred among eight of the 10 leading countries of citizenship with the decrease from India (14 percent decrease) attributable to workers in specialty occupations, the report said.

The leading countries of citizenship for H1B admissions in 2009 were India (36 percent), Canada (6.5 percent), Britain (4.3 percent) and Mexico (4.2 percent).

In 2009, leading source countries for L1 for company transfers included India (16 percent), Britain (13 percent) and Japan (9.9 percent). Forty percent of L1 admissions were accounted for by nationals of these three countries.

Nearly half of academic student admissions (F1) were nationals of five countries: China (14 percent), South Korea (13 percent), India (9 percent), Mexico (8.2 percent), and Japan (5.6 percent).

The most frequent destinations of resident non-immigrant admissions in 2009 were California (14 percent), New York (13 percent), Texas (8.5 percent) and Florida (6.5 percent). These four states represented the destinations of 42 percent of foreign nationals admitted.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)