Sidebar: H-1B Visas Nearly Gone

By Patrick Thibodeau

October 4, 2004 12:00 PM ET

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Computerworld - WASHINGTON -- The cap on H-1B visas granted to foreign workers, set at 65,000 for the 2005 fiscal year that began Oct. 1, is expected to be reached within weeks.
Applications can be filed six months before the fiscal year begins, and by August, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency had received 45,900 H-1B petitions. Based on that pace, immigration experts expect the cap to be reached at its earliest point ever in the fiscal year.
The fiscal 2004 cap, also set at 65,000, was reached in about five months.
There has been a push in both houses of Congress to increase exemption limits for foreign-born individuals who have earned Ph.D.s or master's degrees from U.S. universities. But action before the scheduled Oct. 8 congressional adjournment is seen as unlikely.
Vic Goel, an immigration attorney in Greenbelt, Md., said a quick closing of the cap would leave employers unable to hire highly educated foreign professionals for nearly a year. "If we are making that [educational] investment, we need to reap the return of that investment," Goel said.
But Russ Harrison, legislative representative for the IEEE-USA, said the visa program "creates a strong incentive to push down wages and discourages employment of American workers."

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