mumbaibengaluru the outgoing us president donald trump has extended the ban on h1b and l1 work visas through march the latest in a series of hardline immigration policies in june trump signed a proclamation suspending the issuance of certain categories of worker visas through december 31h1bs and l1s are used extensively by indian it companies as also us technology companies to recruit indian talent the latest move will impact it professionals who were already issued h1b visas for the 2021 fiscal beginning october 1 it is not clear whether incoming president joe biden will rescind the ban when he takes office on january 20cyrus mehta managing attorney and founder of new yorkbased law firm cyrus d mehta partners said the visa ban extension contradicts its rationale to protect us jobs after trumps recent claim that the unemployment rate is below 67it is trumps last gasp to hurt immigration that benefits the us as the skilled workers impacted promote economic recovery although the ban was enjoined by the court in nam national association of manufacturers v trump that ruling was limited to the plaintiff organisations that brought the suit therefore the extension will still be effective on others he saidmehta said trump deliberately planted this time bomb for biden knowing that it would be politically unpalatable to rescind the ban on day 1 since unemployment due to covid19 is still high but at least the new bans shelf life is only till march 31 he notedstephen yaleloehr professor of immigration law practice cornell law school said barring temporary foreign workers from entering the country was a mistake in june it remains a mistake todayrajiv s khanna managing attorney at immigrationcom said an extension of the travel ban would be challenged in courts and defeated on the same grounds on which the government suffered a preliminary injunctiona us district court in the case of national association of manufacturers and others had held that the travel ban proclamation here deals with a purely domestic economic issue the loss of employment during a national pandemic in domestic economic matters the national security and foreign affairs justification for policy implementations disappear and the normal policymaking channels remain the default rules of the game the court had held he said the trump administration has challenged this lawsuit and it was to come up for hearing in midjanuary trump has taken many measures that have made it more difficult for indian it services companies to get us longterm work visas american tech companies however were not as constrained in accessing these visas indian it services companies need these visas to service american customers who constitute 5060 of their revenue and have been trying to overcome the visa constraints by hiring local americansmany in india hope presidentelect joe biden will roll back some of these measures biden has supported the expansion of the number of highskilled visas and the elimination of limits on employmentbased visas by country