H-1B visa limit for 2005 already reached
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The annual cap of 65,000 new H-1B visas for the fiscal year just started has been met, CNET News.com has learned.
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President George W. Bush's effort to overhaul the country's immigration laws got a last minute reprieve in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, giving a boost to millions of immigrants who hope to legalize their status.
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BANGALORE, INDIA - The U.S. government is considering a substantial increase in the number of H-1B visas available to Indian professionals, Robert Blake, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Delhi reportedly told a meeting hosted by the Delhi-based Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India
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(InfoWorld) - Alumni of a major Indian university want the U.S. Congress to take separate action to passÂ H-1B visaÂ legislation that went down with the immigration reform bill thatÂ failed in CongressÂ last week. Members of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) alumni association, meeting for a three-day conference in Santa Clara, California, said Friday that they are hoping to get a separate vote on an immigration bill provision that would increase the number of visas granted to highly skilled engineers coming from abroad to work at U.S. technology companies. "Almost as soon as the bill died, there was talk of piecemeal moves to get parts of that bill passed," said Umang Gupta, chairman and CEO of Keynote Systems, a company that measures the technical performance of Web sites. He's also chairman of the board of PAN IIT, the alumni group hosting the conference, which has drawn close to 4,000 people. The legislation would increase the limit of H-1B visas to be granted every year to 115,000 from 65,000 today. Backers say the extra visas are needed because there aren't enough qualified U.S. engineers to do the work U.S. companies need done. Opponents say the visas just make it possible for U.S. companies to hire foreigners at lower wages than they would have to pay U.S. hires. The legislation would also continue to allow 20,000 visas per year to applicants who have advanced degrees from U.S. colleges and universities. Today, about half of the graduates of U.S. engineering schools are non-Americans, many of whom have to return to their home countries to find work when they should be allowed to work here and contribute to U.S. economic growth, said Pradeep Khosla, dean of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania. "The day this country limits the free flow of skilled immigrants coming into this country, that's the day we start going downhill," said Khosla. Another IIT alum, Yogen Dalal, managing director at Mayfield Fund, a venture capital firm, noted that in the early 1990s, some in Silicon Valley thought they would be overcome by the Japanese. But the success of valley companies like Google and Apple, which introduced its iPhone a week ago, shows it remains a center for innovation. "Wealth is being created by innovation right here in [Silicon Valley]. Economic value is being created here. The work force is just being redistributed," Dalal said. The H1-B discussion is happening against the backdrop of the loss of thousands of jobs in recent years, particularly in Silicon Valley, as companies outsourced work to lower-wage markets in countries like India. But as more work is done in India,Â wage inflationÂ has begun to narrow the pay gap between India and the U.S. And in some cases, Indian companies have begun moving jobs to the U.S., said Arjun Malhotra, chairman and CEO of Headstrong, an outsourcing consulting firm. "If you look at the issue today, it's not outsourcing, it's global sourcing. You go to wherever the best resources are available to do that job," said Malhotra. The Indian Institute of Technology was created in 1950, three years after India gained its independence from Great Britain. It has about 100,000 alumni, 25,000 of whom live and work in the U.S.
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WASHINGTON -- Responding to pressure from high-tech businesses and industry groups, the U.S. Congress this weekend approved an increase in the number of H-1B visas by 20,000 but limited it to specially qualified students. The legislation, included in the omnibus budget bill, allows foreign national master's and Ph.D. graduates of U.S. universities to apply for an H-1B visa, according to people familiar with the bill.
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Immigration officials have a message for employers hoping to hire foreign workers through the H1-B visa program for the fiscal year that began Friday: It's too late.
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New requirements to track down, deport and permanently bar people who overstay their visas would be added to a broad immigration bill under a GOP bid to attract more Republican support.
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By Mowad, Michelle  The local biotechnology and technology industries, highly dependent on very highly skilled workers, are waiting to see if their foreign job applicants have been awarded work visas.  U.S.
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MADRID, Oct 24  (IPS) - The European Union is set to open its doors wide to  qualified immigrants with its blue card system, and at the same  time slam them even more tightly shut to undocumented workers, of  whom there are 10 million in the bloc, including 700,000 in Spain.
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New EU proposal to fast-track immigration process for highly skilled Asian, African and Latin American migrants is fueling more calls for additional green cards and H-1B visas at home.
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The Bush administration is being temporarily barred from imposing new limits on imported clothing and textile products flowing into the United States from China.
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Nearly 530 Iraqi refugees were admitted to the United States last month, a huge bump from July but still far short of the number needed to fulfill the Bush administration's pledge to accept 2,000 by the end of September.
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Federal officials say they are closing in on President Bush's goal of processing immigration applications faster, but that is largely because they no longer count many stalled applications as part of the backlog.
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ALBANY, Feb. 27  â Five former managers from a pallet and crate maker pleaded guilty on Tuesday in the companyâs hiring of illegal immigrants, 10 months after raids in 26 states signaled a federal crackdown on employers that break the law to get cheap labor.
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Congress is letting employers hire 20,000 more foreign high-tech workers under a special visa program after businesses reached the annual ceiling on the first day of the government&#39;s fiscal year.
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Companies that lay off workers would be barred from using H-1B visas under an amendment to the Senate immigration reform bill proposed by two U.S. senators.
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Wholesale changes to the tax code that just weeks ago were identified as a Bush administration goal by the end of 2005 are being pushed back for at least another year.