Viewing entries tagged with 'foreign workers taking American jobs'
Top 10 Fixes --No.8 H-1B Visa Reform Needed
H-1B visas are granted each year to professional foreign workers, each of whom needs to be sponsored by a U.S. company that couldn't find an American worker who has the needed skills. But that quota for each year is typically filled before the fiscal year even begins, resulting in a computerized, random lottery with a 15-30% chance of an employer's petition for a worker being accepted for processing. The result is that small and large businesses can easily lose out, after going through all the paperwork requirements 6-8 months ahead of time, paying USCIS goverment application filing fees up to $3320 per worker, and exhausting human resources efforts to hire qualified talent for their businesses. Starting with the Immigration Act of 1990, Congress arbitrarily fixed the numerical limit, referred to as a cap, for the number of H-1Bs that would be available each year. The H-1B cap was set at 65,000 per year. Several exemptions from this H-1B cap have been added via subsequent legislation, the most important of which is 20,000 visas for persons holding a U.S. Master's degree. The cap was temporarily increased from 1999 to 2003, reaching a maximum of 195,000 per year. But since 2004, the cap was reduced back to the 65,000/20,000 limits.
