Two Indian American congressmen, Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) joined by Republican Rich McCormick (R-GA) have urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to let eligible H-1B and other low-risk category visa holders renew their visas from within the United States.
Under current practice, H-1B visa holders are required to return to their home countries in order to renew their visas, a time-consuming process that forces visa holders to travel internationally.
Allowing visa holders to renew their paperwork in the U.S. would alleviate the burden on U.S. embassies and consulates, which often face backlogs, and ensure that skilled workers, critical to industries like technology and health care, can continue to contribute to the U.S. economy without disruption, ultimately benefiting American businesses and communities, they wrote in a letter to Rubio.
READ: What a second term for Donald Trump means for H-1B visa seekers (December 10, 2024)
The bipartisan letter comes on the heels of a highly successful domestic renewal pilot program in 2024 run by the State Department that allowed 20,000 H-1B visa holders to renew their forms in the U.S.
“The 2024 pilot program for domestic visa renewals was a commonsense success, and now it’s time to build on that momentum,” Krishnamoorthi said. “Expanding and formalizing this program will reduce red tape, strengthen our economy, and help ensure that the United States continues to attract and retain the best and brightest talent from around the world.
“The current process to renew H-1B visas is cumbersome and needs to be modernized,” Subramanyam said. “This bipartisan proposal, based on a successful bipartisan 2024 pilot program, will help streamline the H1-B process and avoid unnecessary processing delays.”
“Building upon the 2024 pilot program for domestic visa renewals will demonstrate that we can modernize our immigration system while maintaining security and efficiency,” McCormick said.
“Reinstating the domestic visa renewals pilot program, expanding it beyond the H-1B visa category, and clarifying the eligibility rules is an important step in the effort to modernize the immigration system,” Benjamin Johnson, executive director for American Immigration Lawyers Association, said. “It provides an opportunity for the Department of State to alleviate the visa backlog, increase efficiency, stimulate economic growth, and strengthen America’s ability to retain talented individuals.”
In the letter to Rubio, the lawmakers strongly urged the administration to build upon the successful 2024 pilot program for domestic visa renewals and quickly take the necessary steps to formalize and expand the initiative with clear eligibility rules.
The pilot program allowed certain eligible H-1B visa holders to renew their visas within the United States, an important first step in modernizing our visa processing system.
READ: DOJ to crackdown hard on H-1B visa holders (February 26, 2025)
The lawmakers urged Rubio to ensure that the program not only continues but is expanded to include additional E, H, I, L, O, and P visas to ease unnecessary burdens on workers and businesses alike.
Up until 2004, the United States allowed E, H, I, L, O, and P visas holders to renew their visas domestically. This practice was discontinued by the State Department in response to the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002.
While this change was not legislatively required by Congress, the 2002 law mandated stricter biometric screening for visa applicants. At the time, the State Department had more capacity to collect this information in embassies and consulates abroad than domestically. The 2024 pilot program was limited to those individuals who had already had their biometrics captured overseas and whose biometrics can be reused.