Washington, March 23
The US has announced that individuals travelling to the country on a business or tourist visa – B-1 and B-2 – can apply for new jobs and even appear in interviews, but the prospective employees must ensure that they have changed their visa status before starting a new role.
B-1 and B-2 visas are generally referred to as “B visas”, and they are the most common types of visa issued for a wide range of uses in the United States. The B-1 visa is issued mainly for short-term business trips, while the B-2 visa is issued mainly travelling for tourism purposes.
In a note, and a series of tweets, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said on Wednesday when non-immigrant workers are laid off, they may not be aware of their options and may, in some instances, wrongly assume that they have no option but to leave the country within 60 days.
The move by the USCIS came as thousands of highly skilled foreign-born workers, including Indians, in the US, have lost their jobs due to a series of recent layoffs at companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon.