|
 In the next few months, the issue will be raised with Indian
authorities during a number of high-level meetings, said the
official, who declined to be identified.
This has already started to happen. The official said at a
consular-level meeting on Nov. 3, U.S. officials asked Indian
officials to scrap the policy. It was also raised at meetings on the
sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in
September.
Since March, Indians who have received U.S. T visas have faced new
restrictions. T-visa holders face long delays in renewing passports
at Indian consulates in the United States. Reuters reported
exclusively last week that they must also provide confidential
information to the Indian government that they had previously
submitted to the U.S. authorities, including details about who had
trafficked them, according to the documents, legal advocates and
interviews with T visa holders.
Human rights advocates say the restrictions undermine U.S.
government efforts to help Indians rescued from forced labor in the
United States, including hundreds recruited to work in U.S. Gulf
Coast shipyards after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.
"There is still a misunderstanding on the part of the Indians of
what a T visa is and what the legal standard is for a T visa to be
issued here in the United States," said the U.S. official in an
interview. "We have a number of high level visits that are going to
be happening over the next quarter and some before that, at which
we’ll raise the issue again."
The Indian embassy in Washington said on Nov. 2 “many individuals
seek to misuse the trafficking visa route to emigrate to the U.S”
and that “appropriate measures are taken in such cases.” India,
however, is mindful of hardships "faced by genuinely affected
persons” who receive T visas and provides them with consular
services, it added.
[to top of second column] |
Between July 2014 and March 2015, the crackdown by the Indian
authorities was harsher. At least 20 passports of Indians stamped
with U.S. T visas were confiscated by authorities at Indian
airports, preventing trafficking victims who returned home to
collect their families from flying back to the United States. That
has now stopped but the new restrictions are still making life very
difficult for some of those with the visas.
In July, one of the biggest employers of Indian workers on the Gulf
Coast, Alabama-based oil rig repair company Signal International
LLC, agreed to pay $20 million to settle claims that it misled and
exploited Indian guest workers brought to the United States.
A March 3 high court ruling in India found India’s confiscation of
passports with T visas unconstitutional. A March 16 memo from the
Ministry of External Affairs reviewed by Reuters told “all missions
and posts” to relax some aspects of the policy but not repeal it.
The problems with T visas follow the December 2013 arrest of an
Indian diplomat, Devyani Khobragade, for visa fraud and underpaying
a domestic worker who was later issued a U.S. T visa. Her arrest and
subsequent strip search provoked an outcry in India over her
treatment by U.S. authorities.
The T Visa crackdown was widely seen as part of the Indian
government's diplomatic retaliation for the Khobragade incident,
which New Delhi treated as an affront to its national pride.
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
