US high-tech visa quota already met
Published: 19 Feb 2004 14:39 GMT
The federal government has received enough H-1B visa applications to meet this year's cap, prompting one business group to call for reform of the controversial guest worker programme.
No new petitions for first-time employment in 2004 will be accepted starting Wednesday, US Citizenship and Immigration Services said this week. The cut-off means that the annual cap of 65,000 new workers has been reached less than five months into the fiscal year, which began on 1October.
The news prompted a quick response from American Business for Legal Immigration, which is a coalition of 200 corporations, universities, research institutions and trade associations.
"Our goal is to keep the US economy growing and keep US jobs in America. Sometimes this requires hiring a limited number of highly educated foreign professionals to fill technical or specialised positions," Sandy Boyd, chair of the group, said in a statement on Wednesday. "Reaching the 2004 visa limit less than halfway through the fiscal year is clear evidence that the system needs to be fixed."
The H-1B visa programme allows skilled foreign workers, such as programmers, into the United States for up to six years. US employers do not have to attest that they sought US workers to fill the job before applying for a visa, but they are supposed to pay the prevailing wage to the guest worker. The cap does not apply to institutions of higher education or related nonprofit groups, or to nonprofit research groups or governmental research organisations.
Many H-1B visas go to technology professionals. One-third of the approved visa applications in 2002 were for systems analysts or programmers, though that figure was down from half of all approved visa petitions in 2001, according to CIS.
Congress raised the annual cap for H-1B visas to 195,000 for 2001, 2002 and 2003. In the wake of a recession and major technology industry layoffs, Congress let the cap drop to 65,000 for this year.
Critics say the programme hurts US workers by taking jobs away from them and undercutting wages. The use of H-1B and L-1 guest-worker visas by companies based in India and elsewhere has come under scrutiny for allegedly fuelling the movement of technology jobs overseas.
Technology industry leaders, though, defend the H-1B programme as a tool to keep US employers competitive. Backers of the guest-worker visas warn that even more IT work would move offshore if they were eliminated.
The American Business for Legal Immigration group on Wednesday suggested that foreign graduates from US advanced degree programmes in math, engineering and computer science should be allowed to remain in the country. "US employers should have access to masters and Ph.D. holders whose education was paid, at least in part, through US tax dollars," Boyd said. "It is counterproductive for the US to train foreign scientists and engineers and then send them home to compete against American businesses."
Another proposal that may affect the H-1B visa programme is President George W. Bush's plan for a new temporary worker programme. Comments from a Bush administration official indicated the proposal may cover high-tech jobs.
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