Cruisingfool
12-29-2009, 03:51 PM
Link (http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_14082295)
High tech work visa reaches cap late this year
By Pete Carey
The Mercury News (Oakland, CA), December 29, 2009
San Jose — After a slow start because of the recession, applications for the high-tech industry's favorite work visa, the H-1B, reached the cap of 65,000 this month, federal immigration authorities said last week.
The announcement by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services might appear to be one more sign of an economy on the mend, but compared to previous years, applications for the normally popular — and controversial — work visa have moved at a snail's pace.
It took nine months to exhaust the supply of visas this year, and a mere day to do so last year. There was only light demand for the visa in April, when the government started taking applications for this fiscal year's quota, but employers finally used them all up in a sign that perhaps high-tech hiring was rebounding.
'The economy is starting to pick up a little,' observed Deborah Notkin, an immigration attorney and business visa expert for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
The visas are issued to employers to hire foreign workers in occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in fields such as science, engineering and computer programming. They are good for three years and renewable for another three. The visas are especially popular with Silicon Valley high-tech companies such as Cisco, Oracle and Google, which use them to attract talent from around the globe.
But they are also controversial, touching on sensitive issues of immigration, U.S. competitiveness and whether American workers are forced out of jobs in favor of those from foreign countries.
U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., have investigated abuses of the visa in recent years, while proponents of the visa say the caps are unnecessary and harm U.S. competitiveness.
'It's such an artificial cap,' Notkin said. 'Even in a recession, it doesn't help our economy to be globally competitive.'
Notkin said she was concerned that 'the media and a couple senators are overplaying' problems with the H-1B program 'and are going to kill it. The challenge is how to keep it and get rid of abusers, which are a minority.'
Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA, a group that favors immigration restrictions, said the visa is too often used to bring in average rather than top talent. 'We don't advocate reducing the 65,000 cap,' he said. 'We just advocate increasing the criteria so H-1Bs are only used to hire really top quality programmers.'
There are an additional 20,000 visas set aside for foreign citizens who have graduated from U.S. universities with advanced degrees. These applicants are rolled over to the regular visa program after reaching their quota. The total this year was not available.
The number of H-1B visas issued far exceeds the 65,000 cap because universities and their affiliates, nonprofits and government research organizations are exempt from the limit. Combined, more than 276,000 H-1B visas were issued in fiscal year 2008, according to USCIS' most current data.
For fiscal year 2009, Wipro, an information technology service company headquartered in Bangalore, India, was the top user, with 1,964 visas, followed by Microsoft, with 1,318 visas. Intel was No. 3, with 723. Among the many other tech industry or valley users are Cisco, Oracle, Google, Yahoo, Apple and Stanford University.
With the year's quota exhausted, employers must wait until next April to file new applications. Next year's visa holders won't start work until Oct. 1, the beginning of the federal fiscal year.
Carl Guardino, president and chief executive officer of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, said the slow pace of applications this year showed 'how weak the American economy has been this past year.
'But in a valley in which 53 percent of our engineers are foreign born, and more than half of the founders or CEOs of technology companies being foreign born, it underscores the need for talent from around the globe to compete globally.'
High tech work visa reaches cap late this year
By Pete Carey
The Mercury News (Oakland, CA), December 29, 2009
San Jose — After a slow start because of the recession, applications for the high-tech industry's favorite work visa, the H-1B, reached the cap of 65,000 this month, federal immigration authorities said last week.
The announcement by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services might appear to be one more sign of an economy on the mend, but compared to previous years, applications for the normally popular — and controversial — work visa have moved at a snail's pace.
It took nine months to exhaust the supply of visas this year, and a mere day to do so last year. There was only light demand for the visa in April, when the government started taking applications for this fiscal year's quota, but employers finally used them all up in a sign that perhaps high-tech hiring was rebounding.
'The economy is starting to pick up a little,' observed Deborah Notkin, an immigration attorney and business visa expert for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
The visas are issued to employers to hire foreign workers in occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in fields such as science, engineering and computer programming. They are good for three years and renewable for another three. The visas are especially popular with Silicon Valley high-tech companies such as Cisco, Oracle and Google, which use them to attract talent from around the globe.
But they are also controversial, touching on sensitive issues of immigration, U.S. competitiveness and whether American workers are forced out of jobs in favor of those from foreign countries.
U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., have investigated abuses of the visa in recent years, while proponents of the visa say the caps are unnecessary and harm U.S. competitiveness.
'It's such an artificial cap,' Notkin said. 'Even in a recession, it doesn't help our economy to be globally competitive.'
Notkin said she was concerned that 'the media and a couple senators are overplaying' problems with the H-1B program 'and are going to kill it. The challenge is how to keep it and get rid of abusers, which are a minority.'
Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA, a group that favors immigration restrictions, said the visa is too often used to bring in average rather than top talent. 'We don't advocate reducing the 65,000 cap,' he said. 'We just advocate increasing the criteria so H-1Bs are only used to hire really top quality programmers.'
There are an additional 20,000 visas set aside for foreign citizens who have graduated from U.S. universities with advanced degrees. These applicants are rolled over to the regular visa program after reaching their quota. The total this year was not available.
The number of H-1B visas issued far exceeds the 65,000 cap because universities and their affiliates, nonprofits and government research organizations are exempt from the limit. Combined, more than 276,000 H-1B visas were issued in fiscal year 2008, according to USCIS' most current data.
For fiscal year 2009, Wipro, an information technology service company headquartered in Bangalore, India, was the top user, with 1,964 visas, followed by Microsoft, with 1,318 visas. Intel was No. 3, with 723. Among the many other tech industry or valley users are Cisco, Oracle, Google, Yahoo, Apple and Stanford University.
With the year's quota exhausted, employers must wait until next April to file new applications. Next year's visa holders won't start work until Oct. 1, the beginning of the federal fiscal year.
Carl Guardino, president and chief executive officer of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, said the slow pace of applications this year showed 'how weak the American economy has been this past year.
'But in a valley in which 53 percent of our engineers are foreign born, and more than half of the founders or CEOs of technology companies being foreign born, it underscores the need for talent from around the globe to compete globally.'