US receives 150,000 H1-B applications

Touches Congressionally-mandated cap for 2007-08.

Tech companies that have been running around desperately to complete government (H1B) forms the year around have bad news to contend with.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced it has received around 150,000 H-1B petitions, enough to meet the mandated cap for Financial Year 2008. However, there are only 65,000 visas available for the 2008 fiscal year since 20,000 are set aside for workers who hold a US masters or doctorate degree. There are additional visas available, but they are for workers in higher education, non-profits and government research. Last year the cap was reached in June.

H1B visas are used by US companies to fill engineering, computer programming and other technology jobs. Silicon Valley companies have lobbied the Congress to increase the number of H-1B visas doled out each year. The companies say there aren't enough US workers to fill these jobs, forcing them to recruit overseas.

The Immigration Act of 1990 set the H-1B visa cap at 65,000 to help US employers hire skilled foreign workers while protecting employment prospects for Americans. The cap was raised during the tech boom and bust years, but fell back to 65,000 in 2004. The government does not release data on how many H-1B visas individual companies receive. Several Websites, though, have posted lists showing Intel, Oracle and Cisco Systems among the top 20 sponsors of H-1B visas in recent years.

Meanwhile, the USCIS will use a random selection process for all cap-subject filings received on April 2, 2007 and April 3, 2007. It will reject and return along with filing fee(s) all petitions received on those days that are not randomly selected. Petitioners may re-submit petitions on April 1, 2008 when H-1B visas become available for FY 2009. This is the earliest date for which an employer may file a petition requesting FY 2009 H-1B employment with a start date of October 1, 2008.

USCIS must perform initial data entry for all filings received on April 2 and April 3 prior to conducting the random selection process. In light of the high volume of filings, USCIS will not be able to conduct the random selection for several weeks, stated an official communication. In order to fully utilise its data entry and initial processing capacity, USCIS may choose to distribute filings received at one service center to other service centers for data entry. In the event that USCIS exercises this option, petitioners may receive receipt notices or other correspondence from a service center other than the one to which the H-1B submission was sent.

USCIS advises employers that there is no need for concern should that occur and that there is no need to contact USCIS.