U.S. Hits Cap On H-1B Visa Petitions For Fiscal 2009

[OhioChick]

Source: Information Week

The cap includes 65,000 general H-1B visas and 20,000 H-1B visa exemptions for foreign-born students who received advanced degrees from U.S. schools.

By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
InformationWeek
April 8, 2008 02:30 PM


U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Tuesday said it received more than enough H-1B visa petitions to meet the annual cap of 85,000 for fiscal 2009 beginning Oct. 1.

The cap includes 65,000 general H-1B visas and 20,000 H-1B visa exemptions for foreign-born students who received advanced degrees from U.S. schools.

USCIS accepted the petitions for five days, beginning on April 1 and ending yesterday, April 7. During that time, the agency received "a high number" of petitions, although it hasn't yet disclosed exactly how many. An USCIS spokesman says it could be "days" before the agency is ready to announce its final count.

USCIS, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, says it also isn't ready to disclose when it will conduct its random, computer-generated selection of H-1B visa petitions.

Last April, USCIS received 133,000 H-1B petitions in two days before it stopped accepting the applications. This year, USCIS issued an interim rule saying it would accept the visa petitions for five days regardless of how the volume of applications coming in, giving employers more time to submit their petitions for the lottery. Technology companies, who have been lobbying for several years to raise the H-1B visa cap, have predicted that USCIS this year received a record number of petitions.



Read more: http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/h1b/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207100385

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I'd like to know which companies applied for the most, as well as which got them.

[aggiesal]

1. And yet, there is a record number of ...

Engineers either unemployed, underemployed, or completely stopped looking for engineering positions.

Corporations have been lobbying to raise H-1B visas for several years, yet none of our representatives
are calling them on this? Come on. Look at all the unemployed/underemployed engineers in this country.

But no, these corporations place ads in periodicals that nobody reads, or create a job description for
a super-engineer knowing that nobody could ever fill these position. Or better yet no US engineer would
accept the meager salary being offered. When by law, these corporations are suppose to be offering the
prevailing wage for that position. It just never happens.

I'd love to see someone get burned by this.

[DainBramaged]

2. The only people getting burned are the out of work American workers

[Dufus]

3. laundry is better then EE

So many have given up and moved on to something else that it
is impossible to count.  My favorite example is a guy who
after 15 years gave it all up and now runs a laundry mat.  The
wild part is that he makes more $$$$ doing the laundry then as
a EE.

[area51]

4. Welcome to DU, Dufus. (n/t)

[KillCapitalism]

5. I wish we had a candidate that would end all H1-B's and other visas.

These jobs need to go to Americans first since there are many millions here who are unemployed.

[OhioChick]

6. Agreed.

Kucinich was for ending the H1B program for that very reason.

[AngryOldDem]

7. That should be public record, IMO.

Or, at least, applicable to FOIA rules.

[OhioChick]

8. Damn Straight it Should. n/t

[jasmine621]

9. There ought to be a moritorium on this program until we find out

just how many of these folks are also included among the "illegals" who have overstayed their visa. Surprisingly, the majority of illegal immigrants in this country did not walk across the Mexican border. They flew into major airports.