CAP FOR H-1B VISA PROGRAM REACHED IN JUST ONE WEEK

Cap for H-1B visa program reached in just one week, Trump administration announces

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Friday, April 6, 2018

It took less than a week for businesses to snap up all 85,000 of the high-skilled visas available for 2019, the Trump administration said Friday, announcing that it has already received more than enough petitions to account for all of the H-1B visas it’s allowed to give out next year.

The application period opened April 2 and is required to remain open for five days, giving companies a fair chance to apply. But that means far more applications are received than the 85,000 slots available, so U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the legal immigration arm of Homeland Security, will hold a lottery to pick the actual visa-winners.

The visas are among the most controversial the government doles out, with high-tech companies desperate to win them to bring foreign workers here — prompting stories of American workers who trained the foreign workers, then were fired and replaced with the workers they just trained.

This marks the sixth year in a row that the cap was reached in the first week and a lottery has to be held.

During the Great Recession it would sometimes take months to reach the cap, as businesses contracted or looked inside the U.S. for workers.

The 85,000 limit on H-1Bs is set in law. Some 65,000 of those are up for grabs in generally, while another 20,000 are set aside specifically for those with advanced degrees in their fields.

Some other H-1B workers are exempt from the cap altogether.

To win an H-1B visa a company must show that it seeks a worker with specialized knowledge. The visas are particularly sought for science, computer programming and engineering fields, though President Trump’s wife, Melania, came to work in the U.S. as a fashion model on an H-1B visa.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/6/high-skilled-visas-go-fast-feds-reach-cap-h-1b-pro/?