While the Indian media has devoted acres of space on External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj telling Kerry that the episode about the American intelligence agencies on the BJP is 'completely unacceptable' (Could she have said that the US snooping is acceptable to India?), it failed to focus attention on the US Senate Bill 744 that adversely affects a large number of Indians and Indian companies.

The Indian media has missed the woods for the trees in the just-concluded India visit by the United States Secretary of State John Kerry. A very important proposed US legislation has gone unnoticed during Kerry’s India visit.

While the Indian media has devoted acres of space on External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj telling Kerry that the episode about the American intelligence agencies on the BJP is "completely unacceptable" (Could she have said that the US snooping is acceptable to India?), it failed to focus attention on the US Senate Bill 744 that adversely affects a large number of Indians and Indian companies.

The bill number 744 — the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 — will undercut the Indian IT companies very badly. No wonder then Sushma Swaraj and Minister of State for Industry and Commerce (Independent Charge) Nirmala Sitharaman raised the subject pro-actively with Kerry.

The US Senate has already passed the bill, which, if enacted, would completely overhaul the US immigration system for the first time in a quarter century and would place onerous roadblocks on the road to US citizenship, apart from stipulating a harsh employment eligibility verification requirement for all employers.

Strangely, the bill also allocates an astronomical $46.3 billion for border enforcement with Mexico, a wasteful expenditure in militarising the over 1100-km-long US-Mexico border. But that is none of India’s concern.

What concerns India is that many provisions of the proposed legislation would be extremely harmful to Indian companies and professionals, particularly from the IT sector.

Here are a few red rags for the Indians:

1. American companies will no longer be able to utilise nearby high-skilled IT support from many of the leading global IT service companies with 51 or more employees if 15 percent or more of them are employed through the H1-B visa programme.

2. In that event, H-1B temporary workers will be prohibited from working at a US business location or a development center for purposes of collaboration, implementations or other support.

3. Senate Bill 744 has put similar restrictions on high-skilled IT workers using L-1 visas.

The Bill has triggered outrage not just from India and Indian companies but also from many leading Americans too. For example, former US ambassador to India Frank Wisner has gone on record as saying thus about Senate Bill 744: “We need an immigration bill that is a clean one, that addresses the main issues, that doesn’t discriminate against Indian companies that want to participate in our marketplace.”

This writer asked Kerry and Swaraj about Senate Bill 744 during their joint press conference in New Delhi on 31 July.

This is how Swaraj responded: “Yes, I raised the issue with Secretary Kerry about Bill No.744. Our Minister of Commerce Nirmala Sitharaman also raised this issue in the plenary session. I told Secretary Kerry that we are not against the Bill per se. Immigration is your internal matter. But we are certainly concerned with the provisions which will affect the Indian IT industry, if the Bill is passed in the present form. I also told Secretary Kerry that it will give a very negative signal and that too at a time when India is opening up its economy for the foreign players.”

Kerry, for his part, began his response by marveling at Swaraj’s ability to identify the US immigration bill by its number. “I am going to confess something to you that I probably should not confess to you. When I was in the United States Senate for 29 years, I never identified a Bill by its number. It was the Immigration Bill or it was the something Bill. So, thank God, the Minister (Sushma Swaraj) knew that that was the number!”

But while moving on to more meaty aspects of the bill, Kerry conceded that the bill would be suitably amended. He also said that the Obama administration will take a call on it only after the US mid-term elections slated on 4 November when all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 33 of the 100 seats in Senate will be contested; along with 38 state and territorial governorships and 46 out of 50 state legislatures.

This is how Kerry responded to this writer’s question: “We did talk about the Immigration Bill and it is a critical priority for President Obama. And we are very aware of the need to make sure that there are more people able to travel, more people able to become part of the commerce...But the way it left the Senate leaves that in need of some amending. The House has not taken it up yet. And it really appears as if they won’t certainly before the election which is in three months. The Administration, President Obama would support some changes that will deal with some of the issues that you have just raised and other issues. But at the moment it does not appear this Bill will move in the next several months. One has to hope that after the election is over there may be the possibility of rebuilding support for it. It is a critical Bill for us in many many ways, way beyond those that you just articulated. President Obama would really like to see it done as a matter of fairness, as a matter of morality, as a matter of commercial and business interest, as a matter of family interest. There are many compelling reasons for why this needs to pass. And I am confident that at some point in time we will get appropriate immigration reform.”