H-1B Cap Reached
H-1B Cap Reached
Date: Friday, June 02, 2006 6:06 PM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1493 -- 06/02/2006 >>>>>
U.S. companies have just used up their entire allotment of H-1B visas for
the year. This is the fourth year in a row that companies have used up the
visas before the end of the fiscal year.
The shills are screaming that the fact that the limit was met is proof that
we need to raise the limits. That tactic worked for them in 1998 and 2000.
I culled a few of the shill's comments below. Notice that they are
clamoring for the Senate immigration bill since it dramatically raises the
H-1B cap.
I haven't seen an article that suggests the solution to the dilemma is to
hire more U.S. workers, but a few have threatening remarks that companies
will move more jobs overseas if they don't get their visas. For those of
you looking for a job, there might be a narrow window of opportunity before
one of these scenarios occurs:
1) Congress passes the comprehensive immigration bill
2) Congress the Skil bill
3) Congress slides an increase in H-1B in some other bill
4) Companies substitute L-1 visas for H-1B
-- "Our message is whether it's comprehensive immigration reform or some
other way we really need relief this year," said Sandy Boyd, a vice
president of the National Association of Manufacturers.
-- Deborah J. Notkin, president of the American Immigration Lawyers
Association (AILA). "It is another example of the countrys broken
immigration system and why we need Congress to pass the Senates
comprehensive immigration bill which solves this annual dilemma."
-- "Hitting the H-1B cap four months before the start of the fiscal year is
a clear sign that the visa process for highly educated workers is broken,
and must be reformed this year," Lynn Shotwell, executive director of the
lobbying group the American Council on International Personnel, said in a
statement. "We clearly have a demand for H-1B visas that is not being met
by the supply. This is a fundamental problem adversely impacting U.S.
employers and American competitiveness, and it requires a permanent fix."
-- "This is bad news as America keeps losing the race to other countries to
attract the worlds best and the brightest high skilled workers," Ralph
Hellmann, senior vice president for government relations at the Information
Technology Industry Council (ITI), said in an e-mail. "This further
underscores the need by Congress to provide additional incentives to
attract these workers."
-- A shortage of high-tech workers created by the cap "hurts the United
States' ability to innovate, compete and create new jobs," added Ginny
Terzano, Microsoft spokeswoman.
Materials Used for this Newsletter
AILA Press Release (email)
http://www.eetimes.com/news/design/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=188700904
High-tech visa cap was reached in late May
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-06-01-high-tech-visas_x.htm?csp=34
Cap on high-tech visas for 2007 already met, government says
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/060206-us-agency-h-1b-limit-reached.html
H-1B limit reached for 2007
http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/news/2006,0602-h1b.shtm
USCIS Reaches H-1B Cap
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: George Tzamaras
gtzamaras@aila.org
202-216-2410
June 1, 2006
H-1B VISAS CAP REACHED
Once Again Arbitrary Cap is Damaging US Businesses Ability to Hire Global
Talent
WASHINGTON DC, JUNE 1 - The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service
(USCIS) announced today that it has met the 65,000 H-1B congressionally
mandated cap for the 2007 fiscal year, which means that companies that need
workers with critical skills will have to wait more than a year before they
can obtain this needed expertise. "This is unprecedented. It marks the
second year in a row that the H-1B cap has been prematurely reached said
Deborah J. Notkin, president of the American Immigration Lawyers
Association (AILA). "It is another example of the countrys broken
immigration system and why we need Congress to pass the Senates
comprehensive immigration bill which solves this annual dilemma."
"Its just more bad news for American employers," continued Notkin. "The
exhaustion of this fiscal years H-1B visas impedes growth and
innovation, and makes it more difficult for U.S. businesses to stay
competitive. Some employers are sending work overseas, because there are
not enough qualified Americans. A workable H-1B program with an increased
initial limit and flexibility to adjust the limit based on economic
conditions would give U.S. employers access to the talent they need and
help retain jobs in America diminishing the need for off-shoring."
The H-1B nonimmigrant visa category allows U.S. employers to augment the
existing labor force with highly skilled international workers, such as
research scientists, to provide expertise to American companies for
temporary periods. H-1B workers are admitted to the United States for an
initial period of three years, which may be extended for an additional
three years.
The H-1B visa is utilized by U.S. businesses and other organizations to
employ international workers in specialty occupations that require
specialized expertise. Typical H-1B occupations include scientists,
architects, engineers, systems analysts, accountants, doctors, and college
professors.
###AILA###
Founded in 1946, AILA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that
provides its Members with continuing legal education, information,
professional services and expertise. AILA advocates before Congress and the
Administration, as well as providing liaison with other government agencies
in support of pro-immigration initiatives. AILA is an Affiliated
Organization of the American Bar Association and is represented in the ABA
House of Delegates.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.eetimes.com/news/design/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=188700904
High-tech visa cap was reached in late May
George Leopold
(06/01/2006 6:09 PM EDT)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=188700904
WASHINGTON - It's become an annual drill: The annual allotment of U.S.
high-tech visas is reached well before the end of the government's fiscal
year and proponents seeking to raise the cap cite the milestone as a reason
to reform the program.
It happened again Thursday (June 1) when the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and
Immigration Services announced that the annual H-1B visa cap of 65,000 has
been reached. The agency said the "final receipt date" for H-1B
applications covered under the fiscal 2007 cap was reached on May 26.
That means H-1B petitions received on that date are subject to a "random
selection process." All applications received after May 26 are out of luck.
High-tech groups seeking to raise the H-1B cap again seized on the
announcement as evidence the program should be reformed.
"Hitting the H-1B cap four months before the start of the fiscal year is a
clear sign that the visa process for highly educated workers is broken, and
must be reformed this year," Lynn Shotwell, executive director of the
lobbying group the American Council on International Personnel, said in a
statement. "We clearly have a demand for H-1B visas that is not being met
by the supply. This is a fundamental problem adversely impacting U.S.
employers and American competitiveness, and it requires a permanent fix."
Engineering groups disagree, arguing that the visa program is being abused
and needs to be fixed before it is expanded.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-06-01-high-tech-visas_x.htm?csp=34
Cap on high-tech visas for 2007 already met, government says
Posted 6/1/2006 7:32 PM ET
By Erica Werner, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The government has already reached the limit on high-tech
worker visas for 2007 even though the fiscal year doesn't start until Oct.
1, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Thursday.
High-tech companies said that underscores the need to increase the 65,000
annual cap on the popular H-1B visas used to bring in engineers, computer
programmers and others.
Immigration legislation passed by the Senate would increase the number to
115,000, but a House version of the bill doesn't address the issue, and
it's unclear whether lawmakers will be able to write a compromise bill.
"Our message is whether it's comprehensive immigration reform or some other
way we really need relief this year," said Sandy Boyd, a vice president of
the National Association of Manufacturers. "There's much more demand for
highly educated folks in specialty occupations and we hurt our
competitiveness when we don't allow American companies access to the talent
they need."
It's the fourth year in a row that the cap has been met before the start of
the fiscal year. This year was the earliest that it has happened, tech
companies said.
The Citizen and Immigration Services began accepting H-1B petitions on
April 1 and exceeded the cap on May 26, the agency said in a press release.
Petitions subject to the 2007 cap that USCIS receives after May 26 will be
rejected, the release said.
High-tech firms won't have another opportunity to apply until April 1,
2007, when petitioning will start for the 2008 fiscal year that begins Oct.
1, 2007.
The visas are widely used in the Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Companies
pay a $3,185 fee to bring workers in under the six-year visas.
In addition to raising the cap, the Senate bill would allow it to increase
as much as 20% more each year, depending on demand. Immigrants with certain
advanced degrees would not be subject to the cap. There already are
exemptions for some immigrants who've received higher-education degrees in
the U.S. or are going to work at universities or non-profits.
U.S. technology workers and other opponents contend the expansion is
unnecessary and will only bring down wages and discourage American
youngsters from pursuing tech careers.
Congress last raised the cap in 2000 - to 195,000 per year - when the
country was enjoying a technology-propelled boom. The limit was brought
back down to 65,000 in time for the 2004 fiscal year.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/060206-us-agency-h-1b-limit-reached.html
H-1B limit reached for 2007
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service, 06/02/06
The U.S. government has received enough applications for the controversial
H1-B foreign worker visa program to fill its 2007 cap, U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services announced Thursday.
Related links
Senate immigration bill raises H-1B limit
May 26 was the last day the agency accepted applications for the program,
used by many U.S. companies to fill tech-related jobs. Program advocates
say it helps companies hire foreign workers with hard-to-find skills.
Companies could first apply for 2007 H-1Bs on April 1.
One tech trade group said the early fill-up shows the need for more H-1Bs.
The application cap comes earlier this year than last year, when the limit
was reached in August, a month and a half before the 2006 fiscal year
began.
"This is bad news as America keeps losing the race to other countries to
attract the worlds best and the brightest high skilled workers," Ralph
Hellmann, senior vice president for government relations at the Information
Technology Industry Council (ITI), said in an e-mail. "This further
underscores the need by Congress to provide additional incentives to
attract these workers."
A shortage of high-tech workers created by the cap "hurts the United
States' ability to innovate, compete and create new jobs," added Ginny
Terzano, Microsoft spokeswoman.
The government's fiscal 2007 year begins Oct. 1, and the H-1B cap is set at
65,000 for the year. A comprehensive immigration bill that passed the
Senate last week would raise the yearly limit to 115,000, but many
Republicans in the House of Representatives are opposed to that bill for
other reasons.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA (IEEE-USA),
representing U.S. IT workers, has opposed a higher H-1B cap, saying the
program is currently ripe for abuse. Many H-1B workers get paid
significantly less than U.S. workers with similar jobs, hurting both
groups, the IEEE-USA contends.
The government releases little timely data showing what kinds of foreign
workers U.S. tech companies are hiring with H-1Bs, said Ron Hira,
IEEE-USA's vice president for career activities. Unless tech companies
share their hiring practices, it's hard to know if they use H-1Bs to hire
workers making $8.50 an hour or $120,000 a year, Hira said.
"There's no way to disentangle whether the demand is for cheaper labor, or
whether the demand is for the geniuses they're bringing in," Hira said.
Under a bill passed by Congress in 2004, the first 20,000 H-1B applications
for workers with master's degrees or higher are exempt from the cap. As of
Thursday, the immigration agency had received about 5,800 exempt
applications, it said.
With about 14,000 exemption applications still available, that suggests
that some companies are looking primarily for cheap labor, Hira said.
"That's at least one indication that there's not just geniuses coming in,"
he said.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/news/2006,0602-h1b.shtm
Press Release
USCIS Reaches H-1B Cap
June 1, 2006
Washington, D.C. -- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
announced today that it has received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions
to meet the congressionally mandated cap for fiscal year 2007 (FY 2007).
The "final receipt date" for H-1B petitions subject to the FY 2007 annual
cap was May 26, 2006. Affected H-1B petitions received on that date will
be subject to the random selection process described below. H-1B petitions
subject to the FY 2007 annual cap that are received by USCIS after the
"final receipt date" will be rejected. Additional information regarding
the specific number of H-1B petitions processed is available at:
www.uscis.gov/graphics/services/tempbenefits/cap.htm .
Cap and Set Asides : Congress has established an annual fiscal year
limitation of 65,000 on the number of available H-1B visas, commonly
referred to as the "H-1B cap." Under the terms of the legislation
implementing the United States-Chile and United States-Singapore Free Trade
Agreements, 6,800 of the 65,000 available H-1B visas are annually set aside
for the Chile/Singapore H-1B1 program. As a result of reserving 6,800
H-1B1 visas for FY 2007, the H-1B cap for that fiscal year is 58,200.
However, USCIS has added back to the H-1B cap 6,100 unused FY 2006 H-1B1
visas, for a total of 64,300, as described below.
Unused Chile/Singapore visa numbers for a particular fiscal year are to be
used within the first 45 days of the next fiscal year. As FY 2007 H-1B
petitions are approved for start dates beginning no earlier than the first
day of fiscal year 2007 and reasonable anticipated usage of approved H-1B
petitions for any 45-day period exceeds 8,000, USCIS has incorporated its
reasonable projection based on H-1B1 usage to date that 700 H-1B1 visa
numbers will be used in FY 2006 into the FY 2007 H-1B cap count by adding
the remaining 6,100 unused H-1B1 visas back into that count, resulting in a
total cap of 64,300 FY 2007 H-1B visas approvable. Because unused H-1B1
visas for FY 2006 have been already allocated in this manner, there will be
no additional later H-1B filing season to use these visas. The 6,800 visas
reserved from the FY 2007 H-1B count for FY 2007 H-1B1 purposes are
anticipated to be handled in a similar manner with respect to the FY 2008
H-1B cap count during calendar year 2007. This allocation of FY 2006 H-1B1
visas based upon reasonable projections of usage to the end of the fiscal
year will not affect the availability of H-1B1 visas in any way; they will
continue to be fully available, with any year-end difference between actual
and projected usage expected to be minimal.
Cap Procedures : In accordance with the procedures announced in the
Federal Register at 70 FR 23775 (May 5, 2005) (Allocation of Additional
H-1B Visas Created by the H-1B Visa Reform Act of 2004) USCIS has
implemented the following process for handling H-1B petitions subject to
the FY 2007 cap:
USCIS closely monitored FY 2007 H-1B filings and used projections to
determine the date on which it received the number of petitions necessary
to reach the Congressionally mandated cap.
USCIS determined that the Congressionally mandated cap had been exceeded on
May 26, 2006, the "final receipt date."
USCIS will subject H-1B petitions received on the "final receipt date" to a
computer-generated random selection process. This process will enable
USCIS to apply the remaining number of available H-1B visas to petitions
received on that day.
Cap subject H-1B petitions that are not randomly selected in the process
described above will be rejected and returned along with the filing fee(s).
Petitioners may re-submit the petitions when H-1B visas become available
for FY 2008.
The earliest date for which a petitioner may file a petition requesting FY
2008 H-1B employment with an employment start date of October 1, 2007, is
April 1, 2007.
Current H-1B Workers : Petitions filed on behalf of current H-1B workers
do not count towards the Congressionally mandated H-1B cap. Accordingly,
USCIS will continue to process petitions filed to:
Extend the amount of time a current H-1B worker may remain in the United
States.
Change the terms of employment for current H-1B workers.
Allow current H-1B workers to change employers.
Allow current H-1B workers to work concurrently in a second H-1B position.
Cap-Exempt Petitions : As directed by the H-1B Visa Reform Act of 2004,
the first 20,000 H-1B petitions filed on behalf of aliens with U.S.-earned
masters' or higher degrees will be exempt from any fiscal year cap on
available H-1B visas. For FY 2007, USCIS has received approximately 5,830
exempt petitions.
USCIS also notes that petitions for new H-1B employment are exempt from the
annual cap if the aliens will be employed at institutions of higher
education or a related or affiliated nonprofit entities, or at nonprofit
research organizations or governmental research organizations. Thus,
petitions for these exempt H-1B categories may be filed for work dates
starting in FY 2006 or 2007.
H-1B in General: U.S. businesses utilize the H-1B program to employ
foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or
technical expertise in specialized fields, such as scientists, engineers,
or computer programmers. As part of the H-1B program, the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) require U.S.
employers to meet specific labor conditions to ensure that American workers
are not adversely impacted, while the DOL's Wage and Hour Division
safeguards the treatment and compensation of H-1B workers.
- USCIS -
On March 1, 2003, U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services became one of
three legacy INS components to join the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security. USCIS is charged with fundamentally transforming and improving
the delivery of immigration and citizenship services,
while enhancing our nation's security.
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