US visas: Good news! Now people travelling on B1, B2 visas can apply for jobs in US

The global tech and startup industry is witnessing a stream of layoffs as Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon have all laid off thousands of employees.

Amidst all of this gloom and doom, there is finally some good news. United State has announced that anyone who is travelling to the United States on B1 or B2 visa can now apply for new jobs and can also appear for job interviews. These Visas are often called B visas, the most common type of visas issued by US government.

While the B1 visa is issued mainly for short term business trips, the B2 visa is issued primarily for tourism. In a series of tweets, the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) says, “when non-immigrant workers are laid off, they wrongly assume that they may not have any other option but to leave the country within 60 days.”

This move comes at a time when a lot foreign-born workers including Indians are being laid off by tech giants and start-ups alike. Now when non-immigrant worker’s employment is terminated, they get a 60-day grace period that starts the after the termination. During this grace period, a non-immigrant worker can take several actions to remain in the country — filing an application for change of non-immigrant status or an application for adjustment status among other. However, if no action is taken, the worker and his dependents are required to leave the US within 60 days.

The decision by the USCIS comes months after two American-Indian organizations launched an online petition urging President Biden to extend the grace period of H1B visas from two months to a year.