An open letter to John Kerry

Comprehensive immigration reform is important and necessary for the United States, but it must be done wisely. There are serious concerns about the current immigration Bill. The legislation, in its present form, would impact the business execution model for US corporations.

It will also prove damaging to the US economy, costing a tremendous number of high quality jobs and doing significant damage to international diplomatic and business relationships. We don't believe that most policymakers want these unintended consequences.

India's IT industry has serious concerns about the provisions in the proposed Senate Immigration Bill that arbitrarily singles out a group of multinational info-tech companies. These proposals amount to discriminatory and punitive treatment of the Indian IT industry and will necessarily restrict thousands of US companies from continuing to use their services.

This will obviously be to the detriment of the US companies. Top companies across all sectors rely on global talent to help them run and improve their busines-ses. They depend on the world-class minds that IT service providers bring to the table as well as efficiencies that enable them to invest in the future. The Senate Bill could undermine some of this.

The contributions of Indian industry in particular are through IT services, business process management, product development, engineering research and design and global in-house centres. These services help US businesses to be more competitive, build innovative products and solutions for global markets, and enter emerging markets globally. By contributing to the innovation, agility and growth, global IT services companies are unsung heroes of the US economic recovery.

There will also be a loss of flexibility and cost efficiency for the US companies as they may be forced to hire additional employees on their payroll adding to increased costs and losing the aspect variability to their cost structure.

In fact, the companies will likely need to divert focus from their core business to the associated IT activities to the extent that they are forced to source their IT work internally. This will not allow the US companies to access best-of-breed techno-logy and expertise, which they could otherwise get from global third party service providers.

All this has a spiralling effect. The lack of US companies' ability to bring in global talent will result in increased offshoring of work. Additionally, the limitations and fees in the new visa regime will inhibit their ability to select IT partners, which in turn will lead to the services being concentrated in the hands of a few service providers, leading to increased costs and loss of flexibility.

Global IT service providers have invested billions of dollars in the US and have been increasing these investments rapidly. They support employment of over 2,00,000 American citizens and pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes through their corporations and their employees. They also contribute significantly to academic institutions and their communities.

Concerns around unemployment in the technology sector are also distant from reality. Various studies have shown that computer science is the highest paid college degree and compu-ter programming jobs are growing at twice the national average, but fewer than 2.4% of US college students graduate with a degree in computer science - a trend that is actually declining.

Additionally, by 2020, there will be one million more jobs in the US related to computer science than there are students graduating with a computer science degree and the vacancy rate for jobs in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) is three to four times the rate of other sectors. Put simply, the US education system is not producing enough STEM-capable students to keep up with demand, both in traditional STEM occupations and in other sectors across that demand similar competencies.

Finally, we are concerned that the Senate Bill could strain the US-India strategic partnership and trade, with potentially harmful consequences for both economies. The IT industry is one of the many strong and mutually beneficial areas of commerce between India and the US.

American exports of non-military commercial services to India grew 12% from 2010 to 2011 and 351% since 2000. Ten of the top 15 technology companies operating in India are American. US exports to India have grown significantly, increasing 12.4% in 2011 and 491% since 2000.

Discriminatory policies that differentiate between and among companies bias the free marketplace and unfairly confer competitive advantage on some companies at the expense of others. Policies enacted should not pick winners or losers but should apply to all companies in a fair and equitable manner.

We understand that immigration reform is important and fortunately a much better approach is under consideration in the House of Representatives. The HR 2131 Issa-Goodlatte SKILLS Visa Act more effectively balances the need to increase jobs for Americans while giving US businesses favourable conditions to compete and grow; encouraging investments that benefit the US economy, and protecting strategic international relationships.

We hope that you will express your support for the House of Representatives' approach, rather than the Senate Bill on the matter of H-1B and L-1 visas, so that the India-US bilateral relationship will continue to flourish and benefit both of our countries and economies.

Just as President Obama has described the US-India relationship as "one of the defining partnerships of the 21st Century", trade and collaboration between our nations in advanced IT solutions and services are one of the defining catalysts of US-India business and economic success.

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