Extend 60-day grace period for H-1B holders, share layoff data: Lawmakers to US immigration service

Amid the massive ongoing layoffs in the tech sector, a group of lawmakers from Silicon Valley has written to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) enquiring about the federal agency’s efforts to ensure highly-skilled H-1B visa holders can remain in the country after losing their jobs.

With a bevy of employees laid off across tech giants including Microsoft, Google, Meta, in the past couple of months, the H-1B visa holders have been left in a limbo with a mere 60-day grace period to find another job, or leave the country.

“This group of immigrants possesses skills that are highly valuable in today’s knowledge-based economy and forcing them to leave the US is harmful to our nation’s long-term economic competitiveness,” the lawmakers wrote.