By Newsgram Staff Writer

Data released by the Virginia-based National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), a non-profit and non-partisan public policy research organization focusing on trade, immigration and related issues has shown that 56% of Indians were denied L-1B visa by the US as opposed to the average denial rate of 13% for other countries.

L-1B, a kind of non- immigrant visa with a stay period of up to 5 years, can be used by US employers to transfer employees with specific skills and knowledge from their offices abroad to those in the US. Indian companies with US subsidiaries can also make use of this visa. The biggest users of L-1B visas are Indian IT companies like TCS, Infosys and Wipro.

NFAP's data shows that the rejection rate for Chinese and Mexican nationals is less than half, 22% and 21% respectively, of that of Indians.

Of the 25,296 Indians who applied for the visa between 2012 and 2014, 14,104 got rejected.

Visa rejection rates which shot up after the 2007-08 global financial crisis have yet not come down though the unemployment rate in the US is dropping sharply.

In early 2012, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officials had proposed new guidelines to review and update the definition for L-1B petitions. "The new proposed guidance never materialized and, based on reports from employers and attorneys, inconsistent decision-making, as well as high levels of denials and requests for evidence have continued," the NFAP report said.