Immigration and firm news

233,000 H-1B Petitions Filed! Lottery Selections Complete

USCIS announced today that it received a whopping 233,000 H-1B visa petitions during the seven-day filing period that began April 1, 2015!  These are for “specialty occupations” that will be effective in the NEXT fiscal year (FY2016) beginning October 1, 2015. Because there were only 65,000 general category visas available plus an additional 20,000 for the advanced degree cap, that means there were more than two and a half times the number of applicants than visas that are available.  USCIS just finished conducting its computerized random lottery selection for those lucky few winners.  The advanced degree cases were selected first.  All unselected advanced degree cases then went into the 65,000 group for random selection. USCIS will now begin processing those cases filed with the premium processing fee of $1225.00.  The unselected cases will be returned along with the fee checks.  Non-premium processing selected cases will be processed over the next few months.

The number of applicants reflects just how startling the disparity is between demand and supply. The filing numbers have gone up every year since the economy has been on the rebound, and our Congress, more specifically the House of Representatives, still doesn’t get it enough to put a bill increasing the numbers to a vote.  Refusing to put any bill concerning legal immigration to a House of Representatives floor vote means this problem, and many other legal immigration measures, just doesn’t get fixed.  Fortunately, American Immigration Lawyers Association members, allies and clients will descend on D.C. this Thursday to visit legislators, this time armed with evidence of extreme demand for so few visas. Since immigration will be on Congressional radar, if you or your employees were not selected, it’s a good time to contact your representative this week with your story about how this is affecting you, your family or business.  (See our quick and easy “Contact Congress” button on our Advocacy page – right hand column.) Ask your representative, especially if a Republican in the House, to ask for a vote on the “iSquared” bill (S.153), and the proposed new categories for start-ups in The Start-Up Act (S.151) and HR616 American Entrepreneurship and Investment Act of 2015). See AILA’s Pending Legislation Page for more information.

As I say every year, what a debacle!  This program is a major headache and expense for employers.  It takes time and money to prepare the cases; there is no predictability about who will get selected, making it impossible for employers to plan staffing and projects, and for potential employees to know whether they can count on working at a new job that was offered to them.  The program filing happens just once a year. Compared to the capped H-2B temporary worker programs, at least the H-2B cap is split in two so there are two filing periods during the year.  The H-1B program is a one shot deal for October 1 start dates regardless if an employer really needs someone at time of filing in the spring.

Despite the headache, employers are obviously very interested in hiring foreign nationals to fill specialty occupations.  In our experience, an employer is not going to go through the trouble unless a) they cannot find anyone else; b) they can afford the process and the wages required for the program; and c) they found someone they really, really need with the right credentials.  Although the tech sector gets the bulk of the media coverage on H-1B visas, H-1Bs can be had in all sectors of the economy provided the job is one that normally requires at least a bachelors degree (or higher depending upon the occupation) in a subject related to the duties in order to perform the job.  Thus, the 233,000 number really reflects an extraordinary demand for highly educated individuals to fill jobs employers cannot seem to fill from local talent.

If you are an H-1B winner this year, feel very, very lucky and pretend that you are just like the surprise winners of the annual diversity visa lottery for green cards, or maybe like one of the state lotto winners for money. Now it’s time to pray your case gets approved, preferably with no request for evidence!

On a side note, up to 6,800 visas are set aside from the 65,000 each fiscal year for the H-1B1 program under the terms of the legislation implementing the U.S.-Chile and U.S.-Singapore free trade agreements. Unused visas in this group become available for H-1B use for the next fiscal year. The requirements for Chilean and Singaporan H-1B1s are slightly different than the standard H-1B program.

What options are there for those that were not selected? See our blog post, Alternatives to H-1B Cap Petitions.