USCIS announced that about 53,800 H-1B visa numbers have been used. 85,000 are available each year. 20,000 are reserved for U.S. advanced degree holders (MS, PhD, etc.) and USCIS says those have been exhausted for this year. About 40,000 numbers were used on April 1 when they first became available.
The guessing game now is how soon the remaining numbers will be used. Some will be reserved for Chile and Singapore per free trade agreements. Those can be allocated up to 6,800. But since typically only a few hundred of those are used per year, the expected extra are made available to applicants worldwide.
A colleague predicts the remaining H-1B visa numbers will be used by the end of 2009. Thus, anyone wanting an H-1B visa should apply now.
Certain people are exempt from obtaining an H-1B visa number. They include people sponsored by colleges or universities, nonprofits related to universities, and certain research institutes. People with an H-1B visa number can change employers without obtaining a new visa number, but a new application must be filed by the new employer.
H-1B workers contribute greatly to the U.S. economy and create employment. The founders of many technology companies started out on H-1B visas. Some created whole new industries and hundreds of thousands of American jobs. The economic footprint of an H-1B worker is also significant. They buy cars, groceries, and books and pay U.S. taxes. I have clients on H-1B visas who are researching cures for cancer, developing new medical devices, creating new electronic technologies, and advancing biotechnology, among other fields.
Martin J. Lawler
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