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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) announced this morning that the H-1B nonimmigrant cap for fiscal year 2010 has not been reached. Should USCIS receive the necessary number of petitions to meet the respective caps, it will issue an update to advise the public that, as of a certain date (the “final receipt date”), the respective FY 2010 H-1B caps have been met. This provides a small (and possibly very short) window to file additional H-1B petitions.

The H-1B nonimmigrant visa allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. The regulations define a “specialty occupation” as requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor and requiring the attainment of a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent as a minimum. Current U.S. law limits the number of aliens who may be issued an H-1B visa to 65,000. In addition, excluded from the cap are all H-1B non-immigrants who work at universities and non-profit research facilities. Laws also exempt up to 20,000 foreign nationals holding a master’s or higher degree from U.S. universities from the cap on H-1B visas. Visa extensions do not count towards the annual limits. In recent years, the H-1B cap has been met on April 1, 2009, the first possible day to file such petitions. This drastic change is most likely attributed to two things: (1) current economic conditions affecting company growth and staffing and (2) the tightened rules on filing H-1B petitions for companies who have received TARP funding. It appears that our economy is assisting in immigration reform!

If your company is considering hiring an H-1B foreign worker, please contact our offices as soon as possible.

Tags: enocomy, H-1B cap, H-1B visa, Immigration reform, TARP, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 10:48 am and is filed under employment law, immigration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.