US not receiving enough petitions for H1B visas

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WASHINGTON: For the first time in several years, the US is yet to receive enough petitions for H-1B work visas, much sought after by US visa highly-skilled professionals including Indians, even a week after it opened the counter for applicants.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today it will continue to accept H-1B non immigrant visa petitions till it receives enough applications to reach the Congress-mandated cap of 65,000 in regular category and another 20,000 for those holding masters' degree or higher educational from a US university.

Immigration experts believe this is an immediate fallout of the current economic crisis, resulting in thousands of job losses in the last one year, and the prevailing anti-H-1B atmosphere in the US right now.

USCIS officials, however, did not comment as to how many H-1B visa petitions for highly skilled professionals it received during the first five working days after it started receiving the petitions from April 1 for the fiscal beginning October 1, 2009.

"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," USCIS said in a statement.

"The final receipt date will be based on the date USCIS physically receives the petition, not the date that the petition is postmarked," the statement said.

According to statistics provided by USCIS, the cap for H-1B visas in both the regular and higher education category last year was reached within the first five business days, following which it had to resort to a computerised draw of lots to determine successful applicants.

Such has been the demand of the H-1B visas that the cap was reached in the first two days in the year 2007.

However in 2006, the cap was reached on May 26 for the regular category and July 26 in the higher education category. In the years 2001, 2002 and 2003 when the limit was 195,000 the cap was not reached.