WASHINGTON (TIP): The United States is poised to turn the so-called outsourcing visa into a skill importing programme. American lawmakers are on the verge of overhauling immigration laws, including the infamous H-1B visa, which critics say has been widely misused by bodyshoppers and outsourcing giants to bring in underspaid foreign (mainly Indian) technology workers to displace Americans from the workforce.

Under new proposals being considered by a senate panel, the number of H-1B visas will actually be doubled from the current 65,000 to 130,000 to address the continued shortage of specific skilled workers in the US. But the primary beneficiaries will not be outsourcing firms who rotate workers between the US and home countries, but foreign students who come to study in America, who will be enticed to stay back, work here, and contribute to the US economy. Industrious foreign students who pay top dollar to graduate from US universities in science, technology, engineering and math ( STEM) subjects will literally have H-1B visas – eventually leading to Green Cards – stapled to their degrees, if the proposals go through. Over 100,000 Indians students are enrolled in US universities at any given time, with thousands coming in each year. The student inflow is already said to contribute more than $3 billion annually to the US economy. In the process, family members of US citizens waiting to immigrate to America may get shafted.

Among the proposals under consideration is one which will reduce the number of green cards to siblings, parents and grown children of immigrants who have become US citizens. The restriction will not apply to spouses and underage children. In effect, Washington is gradually shifting its immigration policy from being “family unification” centered to economic and skill-based immigration. In other words, prospective immigrants will have a better chance of moving to America if they have a required skill set rather than just having a relative in the US.

Tough negotiations are going on in the Congress on all aspects of the visa makeover. Powerful technology giants such as Microsoft, IBM, and Google want foreign workers because they say there is a genuine skills’ shortage in the US and they have benefited from infusion of foreign talent. In a letter to President Obama and lawmakers last week, a number of high-profile CEOs, including Facebook‘s Mark Zuckerberg and Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer, said that being able to hire more high-skilled workers and retain foreign students enrolled in US schools is key to keeping American companies globally competitive.

Tech companies fear that American schools are failing to produce enough graduates with advanced science and engineering degrees. But lawmakers are also buffeted by a vicious anti-immigrant sentiment on the ground, including some directed against the H1-B visa program and Indian workers. Not that pro-H1B groups are keeping quiet. A Washington Post story on the subject elicited hundreds of comments, many of them xenophobic and borderline racist.