Thousands of hard-working, long term tax paying colleagues on H1B visa have lost their jobs in the recent months, especially in the tech sector.

Giving them just 60 days to find a new job or uproot their lives is a huge emotional and financial challenge (settle housing, kids education, finding new visa avenues, and applying for new jobs - tackling all of it at the same time is very challenging).

There are significant investments that US has made in developing this talent pool and it will be a tragedy to loose this tech know-how when we are in a heightened state of geopolitical tech competition. Many of these colleagues have been in decent paying jobs and have not historically been a burden on the tax payor. So if these families have the means of supporting themselves when transitioning to the new jobs, it’s hard to reason why they are being asked to leave the country in 60 days - a time too short to land a new job. Are we just allowing ourselves to be held hostage to an archaic rule that should have been updated long ago?

This petition is to our lawmakers, immigration officials, and distinguished leaders of the Silicon Valley and the tech sector - on behalf of our H1B colleagues who have been impacted : Please raise the 60 day time limit to at least 1 year.

In my humble opinion, the 60 day time limit is almost an inhuman treatment of the highly talented, skilled workers who have given so much to this country. 

This is a plea for executive action to show the same kindness that we have shown as a country to champion the human rights elsewhere in our society, and globally.