Requests for H-1B visas reached all all-time high this year, with nearly 163,000 applications received in five days, federal officials said Thursday.

Because of the volume, Citizenship and Immigration Services will conduct a random lottery to award the 65,000 visas allowed by law for highly educated foreign workers. In addition, another 20,000 will be given to foreign citizens with advanced degrees from American universities, under a special exemption.

“This is the best way to be fair to everybody,” said Chris Rhatigan, a spokeswoman for USCIS, about the random selection process.

The applications not selected will be rejected and returned along with the application fee, she said.

High-tech companies said that the large number of applications proves that the yearly cap is inadequate.

“U.S. employers deserve better than a random lottery to determine if they can hire the highly educated candidates they need,” said Robert Hoffman, co-chair of Compete America, a coalition of high tech companies that includes Oracle, Google, Inc. and Microsoft Corp. “Congress has failed to address the problem as U.S. universities graduate highly educated individuals who leave to work in competitor nations. This madness must end this year.”

Critics, however, say that the H-1B program depresses wages for U.S. workers and is being abused by outsourcing firms.

Ron Hira, a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, said the program lets companies displace American workers and pay below-market wages.

“The run on H-1Bs is caused by a thirst for lower wage workers and the rise of the offshore outsourcing industry,” he said.

Tech Guy information halapachi information ko source pani halnu paro... hawa ma kura ta lekhnu bhayana ni... ki kaso hau..

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/immigration/entries/2008/04/10/feds_receive_163000_h1b_applic.html

 

 

La source chahine jatti sabai lai .. yahi ho source..

 

khali mukh matra chalauna bhayena.. ali dimaag ne chalaunu paryo.. research bhanne kura garnu jannu paryo...

USCIS Reaches FY 2009 H-1B Cap

WASHINGTON â€“ U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that it has received enough H-1B petitions to meet the congressionally mandated cap for fiscal year 2009.  USCIS has also received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions filed on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the “advanced degree” exemption.   Before running the random selection process, USCIS will complete initial data entry for all filings received during the filing period ending on April 7, 2008.   Due to the high number of petitions, USCIS is not yet able to announce the precise day on which it will conduct the random selection process.

USCIS will carry out the computer-generated random selection process for all cap-subject petitions received.  USCIS will select the number of petitions needed to meet the caps of 65,000 for the general category and 20,000 under the “advanced degree” exemption limit. USCIS will reject, and return filing fees for all cap-subject petitions not randomly selected, unless found to be a duplicate.   USCIS will handle duplicate filings in accordance with the interim final rule published on March 24, 2008 in the Federal Register.

The agency will conduct the selection process for “advanced degree” exemption petitions first.    All “advanced degree” petitions not selected will be part of the random selection process for the 65,000 limit. 

Source: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis

April 08, 2008 Updates

("Before running the random selection process, USCIS will complete initial data entry for all filings received during the filing period ending on April 7, 2008." I suppose that USCIS will do random selection for only the applications reached after 7th April, 2008 for Advanced Degree Quota. I have no clue for others quota.)

 

April 10, 2008 Updates shows:

USCIS Releases Preliminary Number Of FY 2009 H-1B Cap Filings

WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced a preliminary number of nearly 163,000 H-1B petitions received during the filing period ending on April 7, 2008.  More than 31,200 of those petitions were for the advanced degree category. 

USCIS expects next week it will conduct the computer-generated random selection process, beginning with the selection of the 20,000 petitions under the advanced degree exemption.  Those petitions not selected under the advanced degree category will join the random selection process for the cap-subject 65,000 limit.   

USCIS will reject, and return filing fees for all cap-subject petitions not randomly selected, unless found to be a duplicate.   USCIS will handle duplicate filings in accordance with the interim final rule published on March 24, 2008 in the Federal Register.

USCIS will provide regular updates as the processing of FY 2009 H-1B cap cases continues.

(According to this update, it shows that they will do random selection for garduate degree quota as well. They will select 20,000 out of 31,200 first and rest will be again selected under bachelor degree quota.)

Chicago Bull Bro

यो इन्फर्मेसन: More than 31,200 of those petitions were for the advanced degree category. 

चै कता छ नि? खै USCIS को वेबसाईट मा त छैन यार

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=379618e1b9839110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD&vgnextchannel=68439c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1RCRD

Thanks Techguy...