Professional visas sell out on first day

[brooklynite]

Source: Crains New York Business

The mad annual dash by immigration lawyers to lock-up professional-level visas ended almost as soon as it started this year.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began accepting applications for the H1-B visas on April 2 (Monday). Normally, CIS keeps granting visas to applicants on a first-come, first-serve basis usually until the 65,000 stock has been exhausted, which typically takes several weeks. This year, however, CIS received 150,000 applications on the first day, due to a big backlog of unsuccessful applicants from last year. The visas are intended for professionals such as engineers, lawyers, and investment professionals.

...snip...

Normally, on the day the cap is reached, CIS uses a computerized random selection process to dole out the remaining number of visas -- typically just a few thousand -- among that day's applicants.

Last year, the 65,000 cap was not reached until mid-May. This year, because the cap was met within hours, CIS announced that all applications will be subject to the random selection process -- with a twist. Federal regulations require that the filing period lasts a minimum of two days, so those applicants who filed on Tuesday, April 3 caught a break. CIS will randomly select from among the pool of applications received on Monday and Tuesday.

Read more: http://www.newyorkbusiness.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070404/FREE/70404007/1064/newsletter01

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Just put a purchase price on them...Bill Gates will buy them all from his pocket change.

[sharp_stick]

1. It's already pretty expensive

especially if you put in for the "optional" expedited processing fee of $1,000. Just the application will cost over $3,500 not including all the future fees required after processing has begun. I'm amazed every year how fast these things go.

AFAIC one major problem with them now is companies that have US operations simply to train foreign nationals in one aspect of a business just so they can move them back to their original country at the end of the H1 period to do outsourced work that they came here to learn.

[loudsue]

4. Yep! There go American jobs...now & in the future.

:argh: Something is so phucking WRONG with this picture!

:kick: & R

[meldroc]

2. Wow, indentured servants are popular among the corporations!

I'm incredibly thankful to be a U.S. citizen because I don't have to put up with the crap from CIS and ICE.

H1-B holders have to bust their butts for their employers, because if they lose their jobs, the clock starts ticking, and if they don't find another job in a few weeks, they're deported. So companies, even though the rules say they're supposed to pay them and treat them the same as U.S. citizens, can get away with paying them a pittance and treating them like slaves.

[JuniorPlankton]

3. It's worse than that!

Very often the company cannot promote such an employee even when it wants to. Or move to another department.
The stupid rules specify that you are tied not just to one company but to one particular position.

Edited for idiotic spelling.

[LeftyMom]

8. They're still better off than H2-A and H2-B workers.

They have to leave or get deported if they lose their work here, and can't find more or get a second job, because their legal status is entirely dependent on the employment contract.

[anotherdrew]

5. this is total bullshit - nothing these foreigners are doing couldn't be done by an american

I bet none of these jobs were even advertised the companies I 'd bet never even tried to place Americans in these jobs.

[Thor_MN]

6. I was replaced by someone on an H1-B visa.

I had been working for 5 years as a contractor to a large corporation. 6 years for the consulting firm with about 5 weeks total bench time. The ownership of the consulting fim changed hands during my tenure and the new management was less than stellar.

The large corporation was happy with my work and wanted to hire me, but the consulting firm, behind my back, tried to extort 15% of my annual billout from the corporation. A counter of 12.5% was offered, but the respective managers pissed each other off to the point that the corporation hired an H1-B drone to replace me. Had I know about the failing negotions, I would have made the difference out of pocket or told the consulting firm to go pound sand. Two days after the corporation terminated my contract, the consulting firm layed me off.

The H1-B visa program should be terminated. The damn corporations are all about letting market forces decide until it comes to labor costs. Then they want to bypass the market and hire slaves on the cheap.

[SharonAnn]

7. Corporations want Free Capital and Slave Labor

[EnviroBat]

14. I hear you there...

They went so far as to ask me to train my fucking replacement. I told them they could shove it, I wasn't an English teacher. I hope they got nothing from hiring someone with a complete lack of ability to do the job, and barely the ability to communicate.
Assholes, all of them...

[pigpickle]

9. This is standard operating procedure. It happens every single year.

[tkmorris]

10. Apparently not

"Last year, the 65,000 cap was not reached until mid-May. This year, because the cap was met within hours".......... Did ya catch that part?

[OhioChick]

11. Study: There Is No Shortage of U.S. Engineers

April 4, 2007

A commonly heard defense in the arguments that surround U.S. companies that offshore high-tech and engineering jobs is that the U.S. math and science education system is not producing a sufficient number of engineers to fill a corporation's needs.

However, a new study from Duke University calls this argument bunk, stating that there is no shortage of engineers in the United States, and that offshoring is all about cost savings.

This report, entitled "Issues in Science and Technology" and published in the latest National Academy of Sciences magazine further explores the topic of engineering graduation rates of India, China and the United States, the subject of a 2005 Duke study.

In the report, concerns are raised that China is racing ahead of both the United States and India in its ability to perform basic research. It also asserts that the United States is risking losing its global edge by outsourcing critical R&D and India is falling behind by playing politics with education. Meanwhile, it considers China well-positioned for the future.

Duke's 2005 study corrected a long-heard myth about India and China graduating 12 times as many engineers as the United States, finding instead that the United States graduates a comparable number.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2111347,00.asp

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

12. we only had 92 such H-1B cases

(the rest of what we do is L visas), but we knew the cap would be met on April 2, the first day these cases can be received by USCIS (I work for a very large IT company that starts with I and ends in M, with a B in the middle ...wink wink nod nod).

I know I'm wasting my breath, as I have repeatedly made my points on this subject many times before, but in my decade plus of working in business immigration for various law firms and corporations, I have yet to see H-1B employees who do not get paid what their US counterparts make, who do not get the same benefits, who do not have the chance to be promoted (the H-1B allows for that, as long as the promotion is in the same field), who do not change employers and who are treated well and not like slave labor.

It's not just IT professionals who qualify for these visas; it's also teachers, architects, designers, fashion models (yes, they are in the same pool), finance/banking people, etc., basically anyone with at least a U.S. bachelor's degree (or foreign equivalent) for jobs that require at least a bachelor's degree.

I'll say it again until the day I die, but the L visas are much more rife for abuse; there is no numerical cap, there is no wage requirement and they are less expensive than H-1Bs.

[Thor_MN]

13. Yes, and all the paperwork you deal with has to say that or it would be illegal...

I mean, who is going to document that they are commiting a crime? Your involvement with the paperwork that documents the process during the brief period that the foreign worker is brought in to take a job away from a US worker is not the entire picture, nor does it mean that ALL companies follow the same procedures. Your tiny little slice of the world may rosy, but please don't entertain the delusion that your experience reflects the entire world.