Information Week
Spring Is In The Air, And So Are H-1B Visas
Posted by Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, Mar 4, 2008 02:24 PM

Get your engines running! It's almost time for the H-1B visa race to begin! The U.S. government starts accepting petitions on April 1 for the 85,000 visas allotted annually, and if history repeats itself, those visas will run out in a flash. So make sure all your T's are crossed and I's are dotted on those forms now.

Not only are employers getting their paperwork ready for the H-1B lottery, tech industry lobby groups are again ramping up efforts to convince Congress to raise the visa cap.

Last April, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received more than enough H-1B petitions to hit the 65,000 limit on the first day it began accepting the paperwork. By day-two the agency had gotten more than 133,000 petitions before it stopped accepting any more. USCIS also last year hit the cap by April 30 on the additional 20,000 H-1B visas exemptions for foreign students with advanced degrees from U.S. schools.

Last week, Compete America, a coalition of tech industry companies and groups that's been pushing to raise the cap for several years now, sent a letter to members of Congress, including House speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging them to provide "immediate high-skilled immigration relief and resist efforts to pass enforcement-only immigration legislation."

The letter from Compete America chairman Robert Hoffman said:

"As was the case last year, not only is the annual supply of H-1B visas virtually assured to be exhausted on the very first day applications are accepted, half of those applying will lose out in the visa lottery, denying U.S. employers access to tens of thousands of highly skilled and badly needed professionals who could contribute to economic growth and job creation in this country. Today’s arbitrary and unrealistic limitson H-1B visas and employment-based green cards sends the message that America’s doors are closed and that these highly-skilled individuals, many of whom have been educated in U.S. universities, should look for opportunity elsewhere.â€