The quota of H1-B visas, reserved for those with a master's degree or higher education, has been exhausted. With that, no more H1-B visas will be available for Indians in any category next fiscal year.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it had received by July 26 enough H-1B petitions to meet the quota of 20,000 established by Congress for fiscal year 2007, which begins only on October 1.
The regular H1-B visa quota of 65,000 was met by May 26, two months after the USCIS began to accept applications for FY 2007.
The slim consolation then was that the quota for those with higher degrees was still open -- but that too was exhausted within two months, which means visa seekers will have to wait till April 1, 2007 to apply; the earliest they can expect to start work in the United States with these visas is October 1, 2007.
Last year, the regular visa numbers had lasted till September, mainly owing to the fact that the number of applications in the first three months was on the low side.
H1-B visas are given to professionals, and Congress has mandated an annual cap of 65,000. Of this number, 6,800 are set aside for nationals from Chile and Singapore; the remaining 58,200 are open to applicants from all other nations.
'However, USCIS has added back to the H-1B cap 6,100 unused FY 2006 H-1B1 visas, for a total of 64,300,' a statement from USCIS said.
The agency was referring to the fact that Chile and Singapore had used fewer than their allotted quota of visas, freeing up 6,100 additional visas for the general category.
"The country cannot wait till next year for H1 visa numbers to be available," a prominent immigration attorney had told rediff.com in May, when the first ceiling was reached.
"It will hurt the economy. I have a feeling that Congress will do something before this October, or at the latest before the November election, to rectify the situation."
His optimism has since proved unfounded. Congress remains enmeshed in discussions on immigration reform, and there are no pending bills in the House seeking to raise the H1-B cap for it to consider when it returns from summer recess.
In March, the US Senate had passed a bill that sought to increase the number of H1 visas to 115,000. However, that piece of legislation remains mired in the House of Representatives, together with other contentious provisions of an omnibus immigration bill.
Thus far, there has been little sign of imminent consensus between the House and the Senate on the issue, and immigration experts now say no one can be sure of the future of the Senate legislation.
The Senate bill has, among other things, a provision to exempt those with certain advanced degrees from the H1-B visa cap. It is estimated that if the Senate bill were to be mirrored in the House and become law, the overall quota could rise by as much as 20 per cent per year, depending on labor market demands.
The H-1B provision lets foreigners work in the United States for up to six years. The 65,000 cap does not apply to extension requests made by visa holders after three years.
Although not all H-1B visas go to technology workers, the program is especially dear to the Silicon Valley high-tech industry, whose lobbyists had helped convince Congress to increase the number of annual H-1B visas to 115,000 in 1999, and then to 195,000 through fiscal year 2003, to fuel the Internet boom.
The George W Bush Administration, however, allowed that provision to lapse, and the visa cap automatically reverted to the previous number of 65,000.
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