Annual H-1B Visa Cap Met In One Day

CNet is reporting that the door has closed on the H1-B visa application process for this year, one day after it began. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services said that it had received 150,000 applications as of yesterday afternoon. 65,000 H1-B visas can be issued for foreigners with bachelor's degrees. The USCIS will choose randomly from the applications to determine the winners.

Shouldn't be a lottery.

[jcr (53032)]

Those spots should be auctioned off. The more an employer is paying for an H1-B visa, the more highly-skilled the worker in question is likely to be. IOW, we really will be getting those people with skills we can't find here.

-jcr

Re:Shouldn't be a lottery.

[Chandon Seldon (43083)]

That sounds like a good idea, as long as you ignore the feedback effect of any government auctions. I'm not sure that making H1B visas a revenue source is really conducive to fair policy decisions in the future.

Re:Shouldn't be a lottery.

[StikyPad (445176)]

That's a classic catch-22, since first we'd need people with the skills to implement such an idea.

Re:

[jcr (53032)]

Piece of cake: just outsource the app to implement it to InfoSys in Bangalore.

-jcr

Re:Shouldn't be a lottery.

[Lewisham (239493)]

You aren't wrong, but getting the H1-B is difficult enough already. The company has to want you really bad to burn up an application, without a guarantee of success, that only happens once a year, and if I remember right, have proof that an American applicant couldn't have filled the position. For the applicant it's all those things plus convincing the company you're worth it and probably having to fly there to see said company in person.

I don't see what else this would achieve without just being a way of gouging money, and further screwing job-seekers who actually want to pay taxes, contribute to the economy and the growth of American companies. I don't subscribe to the idea that skilled workers take American jobs, I believe they help companies grow and generate more jobs in the long-term.

I think that IT is indeed a global economy, and if America is not willing to take on the view that companies can benefit from cherry-picking out of an international workforce, someone else, like Canada or Sweden, will, and companies there will grow.

Disclaimer: Yes, I am a bitter UK citizen with a Masters degree that can't get a visa to live with his Californian girlfriend that I met during my year of study in the USA. We had to come to New Zealand for us both to continue being together without getting married.

Re:Shouldn't be a lottery.

[kevin lyda (4803)]

Never been to NZ, but from what I've seen/heard it sounds like you got a better deal.

Re:Shouldn't be a lottery.

[Malggi (791997)]

...and if I remember right, have proof that an American applicant couldn't have filled the position.

Unfortunately, you remember wrong. The Economic Policy Institute has a great article on this that should probably be submitted to the main page. You can find the article here: http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp187.html [sharedprosperity.org]

To quote the linked article:

The most significant design flaw is the absence of a labor market test. The U.S. Department of Labor recently expressed the practical implications of this fact in a straightforward manner when it stated that "H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker." Simply put, an employer does not have to test the labor market before hiring a foreign worker on an H-1B.

Re:

[cluckshot (658931)]

I personally think it should be bid out and not a lottery. We sell access to airwaves in this way, why not this?

To be quite frank the whole issue is a trade war the USA is running against its own citizens and the tax evasion of certain employers in that trade war. Its really quite simple: The USA taxes away (state local and federal) about 65% of the income of its workers. The foreign workers come into the country without the embedded tax cost of about $300,000 (varies on the degree) of tax exempt inves

Re:

[BVis (267028)]

OK, you need to explain your concept of "tax cost". Are you saying that the taxes that both I and my employer pay are "losses" that must be "made up" in order to be fair? If that were the case, it would seem that you're putting that in the same light as, for example, education loans or mortgages. If you're meaning something different, I think the community might benefit from a citation or two fleshing out your point of view. (I think I've been reading too much Wikipedia discussion.) Personally, I look

Give us your...

[mwvdlee (775178)]

Give us your rich, your lucky, your highly educated masses longing to be exploited...

Re:

[CRCulver (715279)]

Hmm, maybe the selection of immigrants by lottery will make American an increasingly lucky country, just like Larry Niven's tongue-in-cheek hypothesis in Ringworld [amazon.com] that through a birthright lottery evolution would select for luck and eventually human beings wouldn't have to fear any accident.

Re:

[iamacat (583406)]

medical fields - a field the US is sorely in need of more skilled people.

Nope, there are plenty of skilled people. We just need to stop suing them so much and torturing them with inhuman work hours.

yet lets the illegals who burden the system walk across the border without fear of repercussion.

Those would be the ones who ensure you never have to worry about affording basic groceries in Safeway.

Not an english major

[gkozlyk (247448)]

Batchelor degrees, eh? Didn't know you could get those too.

Re:Not an english major

[aalu.paneer (872021)]

Yes, people with Batchelor degrees do bach processing.

We need more

[phathead296 (461366)]

Is there anyone else here who thinks this is an indication that we need more Visas?

While millions of unskilled illegals flood our borders every year, stressing our social safety net, the people we want in this country can't get in. We need more skilled workers who want to work within the system and work here legally and fewer unskilled workers who end up with a free ride at taxpayer's--mine and your--expense.

Re:We need more

[illegalcortex (1007791)]

It's questionable what percentage of these H1-B workers would be as desirable if they were here on regular visas. H1-B puts the employee in a certain position that very advantageous to the employer. I wouldn't mind finding out, though. I'm all for ditching the H1-B system and allowing full, unlimited immigration to highly skilled workers.

Re:We need more

[eln (21727)]

Please explain how letting in more highly skilled workers would keep low skilled workers from entering the country illegally. Unless you're suggesting hiring H1-B workers as border patrol agents, I don't see it.

Re:

[cdrguru (88047)]

What the heck is wrong with the idea that Americans can be doing American jobs?

Sure, many employers would rather hire someone that needs permission to change jobs and can pay them something less than someone born in the USA. Why do we want to give them that privilege?

This has nothing to do with illegal immigration. The illegals are being exploited in the US almost as much (but not quite) as they were exploited and abused in their home country. But given that the reward of working in the US is so much hig

Re:

[moosesocks (264553)]

If there were Americans to fill these spots, I wouldn't doubt that they'd be filled by Americans. It's a far cry from "throwing open the borders" (which I would imagine would apply more to unskilled jobs than skilled jobs anyway)

The H-1B process is so costly, time-consuming, and unreliable that an employer would be insane not to.

Instead, in effect, you end up with a talent-shortage. Americans are still out of a job, and companies are unable to maintain an edge in order to stay competitive in the internat

Re:We need more

[Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)]

If there were Americans to fill these spots, I wouldn't doubt that they'd be filled by Americans.

In a free market, if demand increases while supply remains constant, than prices will rise. Yet we've seen near static wage levels in the computer industry since the end of the dot-bomb years. This empirical evidence shows that there are plenty of Americans available to fill these spots.

If we can't fill our jobs with our own people, then there is something seriously wrong with our education system that needs to be addressed immediately. Basic economics indicates that opening the job market up to competition would be the fastest and most effective way to make this happen.

No, there is nothing terribly wrong with our education system. It is the incentive system that has something seriously wrong with it. The guys going into college know that the job market for computer engineers sucks, so they've been studying other disciplines, enrollment in computer science courses is at record lows [techtarget.com] all across the country but general college enrollment is climbing. [ed.gov]

Make it an attractive career, not one where the suits take advantage of the geeks, and you'll see plenty of increased interest. But if the industry continues to undercut its current people, they will eventually find themselves in a situation where they really do need tons of H1Bs for their talent and not for their effect on wages. Or they'll find that other countries need these guys more than the US does because we've lost our edge.

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)]

Throwing open the borders isn't a solution, it is just a suicide pact. All that does is transform the culture of the US into being another corrupt, graft-driven Central American country.

You're going to have to do better than just assert that if you want people to believe you, because it makes it sound like you are either a racist who thinks that the culture of central america is inherently dishonest, or you are a poor economist who thinks that open borders will lead to massive depression such that the major

Re:We need more

[Realistic_Dragon (655151)]

The US certainly needs to do something.

There is currently a 4 year+ queue for people over 21 with a US citizen parent to obtain a green card. If they get married during the wait they go to the back of an EIGHT year queue.

Oh, and their spouse dosen't get a visa when they do, there is another 5 year wait on top of that. If they chose to apply as the spouse as an LPR (instead of waiting for citizenship) then during the 5 year wait their spouse can't even enter the US.

This is true even for citizens of affluent countries with technical degrees and well paying jobs who would, but for ITAR and the difficulty of the H1B process, be happy to move them to the US.

Because of this I have been unable to get married despite being engaged for over a year, and once we do manage to get married we won't be able to live together for at least five years.

The US system is at present seriously broken.

Open offices in Canada!

[cperciva (102828)]

There's a simple solution to the H-1B visa problem: Open offices in Canada, where a skilled worker who can speak English and has a job offer is practically guaranteed a visa. Vancouver in the same time zone as Silicon Valley, only a 2 hour flight away, and has a lower cost of living than any large city on the US west coast. Add to that two great universities, a moderate climate, and some of the best skiing in the world, in addition to all the usual amenities of a large city, and it's no surprise that Vancouver is routinely rated as one of the best places to live in the world. What are all [amazon.com] you [yahoo.com] guys [google.com] waiting for?

(This post brought to you by I-want-a-job-and-don't-want-to-move-to-California. )

Re:

[Paulrothrock (685079)]

There are tech companies all over the place. I live in Lancaster, PA and I work for Mapquest.

You don't have to live in a place where 1200 square foot houses cost $500,000 to get a great job with a company somebody's heard of.

Re:

[cperciva (102828)]

"Open offices in Canada, where a skilled worker who can speak English and has a job offer is practically guaranteed a visa."

Guaranteed a visa "maybe", but not a job related to their profession. Like many others in Canada, I've had my share of chats with PhDs driving cabs.

If you have a job offer related to your profession, then you are indeed guaranteed a job related to your profession. If you come to Canada on the basis of a job offer for a job which you don't want, well, you get what you deserve.

There a

The DHS says these numbers are too low

[btarval (874919)]

This H1-B Visa issue limit is pretty much of a scam. Cisco for one uses tons of L1-B's from Wipro to by-pass this restriction regularly. I imagine that others do too.

Add to this the fact that there's really no effective enforcement going on, this "limit filled in one day" just reeks of political fodder to push for more Visas.

Surprisingly, there are indeed some actual real numbers published on the number of H1-B admissions into the U.S., from the Department of Homeland Security. These numbers appear to confirm that there are a lot more H1-B's entering the country than the Visa limit would suggest.

The DHS document (The 2005 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics) is at: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/year book/2005/OIS_2005_Yearbook.pdf [dhs.gov]

I'm quoting the following from a discussion on dice.com at: http://seeker.dice.com/olc/thread.jspa?threadID=49 2&tstart=15 [dice.com]

"Temporary workers and Trainees:" Specialty Occupations(H-1B):

YEAR - H-1B visas Admitted
1996 - 144,458
1997 - 240,947
1998 - 302,421
1999 - 355,065
2001 - 384,191
2002 - 370,490
2003 - 360,498
2004 - 386,821

There are a number of other excellent quotes on the above thread on Dice. It's well worth reading.

Re:

[TeckWrek (220789)]

The answer you are looking for is in the DHS document that you linked to. The table 26 on page 64 (where you picked the yearly number from) specifies in the header 'Non Immigrant Admissions (I-94 only)....'. The H1B visa has a maximum validity of 6 years. New visas are issued every year, but the ones issued in previous years (up till last 6) are still valid. All those people can go in and out of the country. Each time they do so, they are issued a new I-94. As a keen eye and some basic analysis will prove t

Re:

[btarval (874919)]

The point remains that people are being mislead by the common suggestion that there's a limit of 65,000 H1-B's in the U.S.. Indeed, you mentioned some of the loopholes used to by-pass it. And there are many other loopholes, such as the L1-B's, which adds even more.

These numbers are staggering; and it's no wonder why new C.S. students find it discouraging to enter the field in the U.S..

It's also interesting that the last number available in the DHS publication is also strikingly close to the number of 40

Way out..

[univgeek (442857)]

Pick the H1B candidates according to salary. The people with the highest salaries get H1Bs first. The market will ensure that H1B's go to the candidates most in demand. Spread the cap over every month, with a backlog. This way, companies know the minimum that has to be paid as salary to get a H1B employee.

Also IMO, a lot of this demand is drive by the Indian IT companies - TCS, Infy, Wipro, etc. They have HR teams who apply for as many of their employees as might be required to go onsite in the next year. And since a normal company can't usually afford to apply for, and hire, a person 5 months ahead of his possible entry into the US, the Indian IT companies are making hay.

There are also students who are on their OPT who can apply for a H1B and work on their OPT until they get their H1Bs. These two'd probably be the biggest sets of applicants.

This leaves a lot of companies in the US which might like to bring someone in on a H1 in an impossible situation.

I'm an Indian, in India, and not going for a H1 any time soon. But I've seen a lot of my friends having problems because of H1. And the visa situation and general atmosphere after 9/11 was partially what made me come back after my MS.

Immigration Nightmare!

[RexRhino (769423)]

Remember the nightmare, back before the U.S. restricted immigration!?!?!

We had the scurge of people like Einstien, and John von Neumann! We had the evil of people like Enrico Fermi, and Nicoli Tesla, and Alexander Graham Bell, stealing up all those jobs that should have gone to hard working Americans! And it is about time we kick that evil job-stealing bastard Linus Torvalds from this great U.S. of A. to whatever Scandinavian hell-hole he is from!!!

Think how much more advanced and successful the U.S. economy would be if it wasn't for these people ruining everything!

Re:

[illegalcortex (1007791)]

You actually submitted a headline where the moron spelled it batchelor

Which moron? Isn't this a submission created by kdawson? I don't see any "So and so writes" in front of the article text. This would imply there was no second moron involved.

Re:

[Jose (15075)]

kdawson does seem pretty lazy, leaving out the "dept" section a lot, posting *obviously* wrong and misleading summaries of stories, and not bothering to update the story..just seems lazy.

Re:US?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Who would want to work in the US anyway? Better off heading to Europe.

Not really. It is much easier to live in the US. For one thing, as an immigrant myself, and inspite of the constant rants about racism I've heard, I have found that as long as you avoid some of the more obvious states (the Bible belt comes to mind), racism and bigotry are rare in the US. I know for a fact that Germany is NOT a place where non-westerners would be as welcome as in ANY place in the US. Same goes for the Scandinavian countries where political parties gain power based on the single issue of keeping foreigners out. Aside from England, I don't know of any European country that is remotely as attractive as the US for a potential immigrant (and England is a rather ghetto version of the US at this point in history). France is a bit of a joke frankly (as far as immigration by non-westerners is concerned, they're as cosmopolitan as hilbillies :P).

No, I think it's safe to say that the US always has been and always will be the place where people immigrate to. Unless of course the people here develop the disease of meaningless nationalistic jingoism like the rest of the banana republics in the world. Oh wait...

Re:US?

[Kazzahdrane (882423)]

Scotland - we're possibly the most welcoming country in the world. There's a hell of a lot less racism here than in England (as far as you can tell by the news anyway) and there's a lot of open space for people to enjoy if they're looking for that sort of thing.

Re:US?

[The Great Pretender (975978)]

"we're possibly the most welcoming country in the world"

Unless you're English. Try moving to Scotland at the age of ten from England. It's funny how a much crap the Scottish can dish out because they're indoctrinated at an early age by their parents that anyone/thing from England must be the devil in disguise and out to beat the Scotsman while they're down. At 23 I left and came to the US.

Re:

[drsmithy (35869)]

Here in Dundee we have a lot of people or chinese and asian origin, lots of them are born and bred here in Scotland with parents or grandparents who emigrated to Scotland. In the shop I work in we get non-whites in every day, and Glasgow for instance has a huge asian population.

Indeed. One of the most surreal experiences in my recent trip through the UK was hearing an old Asian lady - not a day under 80, I'm sure - start talking in one of the thickest Scottish accents I've ever heard (the type where all

Re:US?

[Kazzahdrane (882423)]

Come to Dundee sometime, the locals can't say the "aye" sound. Which, in Scotland, is a bit strange anyway but for them it comes out as a flat "eh", with no raised pitch at the end that might indicate "eh?". So they say "peh" for "pie", "fev" for "five", and - amusingly - "Dundeh" for "Dundee".

All leading to the hilarious phrase "Eh went to Dundeh fer a peh but eh fell and meh peh went skeh heh."

I love my country.

Re:

[terjeber (856226)]

Doesn't matter how long you've lived in Europe - What you're spreading is FUD.

FUD? Do you even know what FUD is? No, I am no spreading "FUD", but some may say I spread lies about Europe. I do not. I was born and raised in Norway. I have worked in several European countries, and I have been gainfully employed in the US for a good few years now. As opposed to most Europeans (and Americans for that matter), I have experience enough to know what I am talking about.

The high unemployment rates amongst immigran

Re:US?

[140Mandak262Jamuna (970587)]

Very true. I am an Indian American and if any immigrant group into India becomes as successful in India as Indians have been in USA, there will be riots in the streets.

Just look at the hostility shown to the South Indians (disparagingly refrred to as the Madrasees) by the people of Delhi. Or the "sons of the soil" policies advocated by Shiv Sena in Bombay which is just thinly veiled antogonism shown to the educated South Indians getting plum jobs there. Not that the South Indians are paragons of virtue. My own native place lumps all North Indians as "marwadis", though Marwar is just one district in Rajasthan. Most North Indian are businessmen but political parties paint them to be money lending Shylocks.

I will say it once more, Indian Americans household median income is around 60K$, compared to some 52K for the Whites, 45K for the blacks and 42K for the hispanics. If this happened in India, the succesful group would have been hounded mercilessly and demonized for political purposes.

Re:

[edwardpickman (965122)]

Apparently most of the world wants to work here since large numbers apply for work and come here illegally. I've had a lot of friends who are English, Dutch, French, ETC. Most of them complain about the US and talk about how much better it is in their home country. Funny they still live and work here so it doesn't help their argument. It's hardly perfect but there must be some pluses since so many fight hard to get and stay here. I have an Australian friend that decided to go back. He stuck it out for 9 mon

Re:

[Alioth (221270)]

I went to the US to live for several years. I enjoyed it very much, and wouldn't change it for the world.

However, I'm extremely glad that I'm back home now. When I hit my late 20s, I realised that there were things that were a lot more valuable to me than the money I could earn in the US or the stuff I could buy cheaply in the US.

The US isn't awful at all, I go back and visit my friends in Houston at least once a year. But I'm so glad I moved back home. Perhaps some time in the future I'll get the urge to l

Re:

[Tablizer (95088)]

Who would want to work in the US anyway? Better off heading to Europe.

Europeans don't tolerate threats to their career the same way Americans seem to, and cap the visas lower. Europeans take labor unions seriously, while Americans shun them. Unions have a bad rap in the US because they've gotten carried away and created silly rules that companies have to follow. It may take a generation or two before the stigma wears off and/or unions don't keep making the same mistakes.

Re:

[eln (21727)]

My company has a fairly large presence in India. Recently, one of our India employees came to the US for a few weeks to work with us. He mentioned that working in India, he could expect to work for 10 years before he could afford to buy a house. However, if he were to work in the US, he could afford a home in India after only 2 years of work. If I were an Indian, I would want to work in the US too.

Re:

[liuyunn (988682)]

well good for him
Folks here in the midwest still take 30 years to pay off their mortgage. Maybe we should start thinking about moving to India.

Re:

[RKBA (622932)]

If by "your 'own' home" you mean the bank's home, then I would agree; however, even after the mortgage is paid off it still isn't your own home. It belongs to the county and you must pay a yearly rental fee to the county for the rest of your life or they will repossess it. The county calls the rental fee "property taxes" and they can be quite high in some areas. I wonder if they have that in India?

Re:

[narf501 (1051136)]

Wrong. The US Supreme Court made a decision that anyone's property can be condemned and be made part of a private business at anytime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_L ondon [wikipedia.org]

This case shows that a county can take property from one landowner and give/sell to another landowner at will. You live in the property you "own" only at the whim of the county and state.

Re:

[the eric conspiracy (20178)]

That's called eminent domain.

Re:US?

[JavaLord (680960)]

You really think all taxes are bad

No, just most of them.

and all govt is bad?

The bigger it is, the worse it is.

Or are you whoring to get mod points? Learn these basic things about civics. Govt, by its mere, presence adds value to your property. The general law and order, enforcement of contracts, truth-in-labeling laws, truth-in-lending laws etc foster the climate the create value

These things are good, but property tax and state tax is what leads to these. You can lobby for change when it comes to those, or just move if it is that bad. Want to debate the fairness of federal taxation? Want to talk about the $25 million dollars that is being earmarked for spiniach growers in the upcoming federal budget?

Just think, how valuable your home will be if it is wrenched out of USA and plunked smack-dab-in-the-middle of Darfar, Sudan. The property tax there is probably 0. So before you mouth off, "govt is bad and zero tax is the fair tax" just remember that it just shows how shallow your comprehension of the world is.

Just because someone doesn't have the same views as yours on taxation and government doesn't mean their comprehension of the world is 'shallow'.

Re:

[Jahz (831343)]

The requirement for a degree in any CS profession is artificial. My degree is in Chemistry, and yet I work as a software engineer.
My job isn't especially hard, and certainly two trained monkeys could do it.

And I'm sure that if I practiced enough and studied enough text books, I could work as a crappy chemist too. What's your point? A CS degree requirement is not artificial. There is a good deal of non-trivial theory that a degree holder is expected to have a good handle on. Sure, its possible to script and write moderately complex programs without take Theory of Computation, Algorithms, OO Design, Programming languages, etc. Perhaps you don't need a grasp of graph theory or an understanding of why P=NP i

Re:So this has become another green card lottery?

[TeckWrek (220789)]

As an H1B holding Indian working in the US, I can tell you for a fact that the assertion you make (really your lawyer) is completely and utterly false. The cap applies to the entire world. There are other visa types that you can come to the US under, but if its the H1B you are interested in, the cap applies.

If your lawyer doesn't know this or is feeding you misinformation for whatever reason, you should look into taking your business elsewhere.