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Among immigration lawyers, 2009 will be known as the year of “un-cappable” H-1B visas.

What is an H-1B nonimmigrant visa?

H-1B nonimmigrant visas allow U.S. employers to temporarily (up to six years) employ foreign workers in what USCIS calls “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. Examples of common H-1B eligible positions are accountants, computer programmers, database administrators, general managers, marketing research analysts, medical technologists, and software engineers.

What is the H-1B nonimmigrant visa cap?

Currently, U.S. law limits the number of H-1B visas to 65,000 per fiscal year. 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.

Why is 2009 the year of the “un-cappable” H-1B visas?

In recent years, the H-1B non-masters cap has been met on April 1, the first possible day to file such petitions. As of today, the H-1B cap still has not been met. This drastic change is most likely attributed to two things: (1) current economic conditions affecting company growth and staffing needs and (2) the tightened rules on filing H-1B petitions for companies who have received TARP funding.

How does this benefit your company?

The H-1B visa is among the most coveted by U.S. employers because it allows foreign workers with only a bachelor’s degree to be employed by the company. Most visa types require certain years of foreign employment with an international branch of the employer or far more stringent eligibility requirements. For many years, the H-1B has been a vital component for many company’s staffing needs.

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

Tags: Foreign Nationals, foreign workers, H-1B, H-1B cap, H-1B visa, immigration, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 11:03 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.