The New York Times
July 4, 2007
U.S. Withdraws Offer of 60,000 Job-Based Visas, Angering Immigration Lawyers

By JULIA PRESTON
Immigration lawyers raised unusually irate protests yesterday after the State Department and the immigration service abruptly withdrew tens of thousands of job-based visas they had offered last month to foreign professionals hoping to become permanent residents in the United States.

The outcry was provoked by a terse announcement on Monday in which the State Department said it would not grant any more visas for the 2007 fiscal year to foreigners applying to become permanent residents based on their job skills. That notice reversed one the department had issued on June 13 announcing a two-month window starting July 2 for aspiring, high-skilled immigrants from around the world to present applications for visas known as green cards.

The State Department said the 60,000 visas it had expected to offer would no longer be available because of “sudden backlog reduction effortsâ€