Need a Visa for your candidate? Sorry… Try again in 2008!!!
The government has already reached the limit on high-tech worker visas for 2007 even though the fiscal year doesn’t start until Oct. 1, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Thursday.
High-tech companies said that underscores the need to increase the 65,000 annual cap on the popular H-1B visas used to bring in engineers, computer programmers and others.
Immigration legislation passed by the Senate would increase the number to 115,000, but a House version of the bill doesn’t address the issue, and it’s unclear whether lawmakers will be able to write a compromise bill.
“Our message is whether it’s comprehensive immigration reform or some other way we really need relief this year,” said Sandy Boyd, a vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers. “There’s much more demand for highly educated folks in specialty occupations and we hurt our competitiveness when we don’t allow American companies access to the talent they need.”
It’s the fourth year in a row that the cap has been met before the start of the fiscal year. This year was the earliest that it has happened, tech companies said.
The Citizen and Immigration Services began accepting H-1B petitions on April 1 and exceeded the cap on May 26, the agency said in a press release. Petitions subject to the 2007 cap that USCIS receives after May 26 will be rejected, the release said.
High-tech firms won’t have another opportunity to apply until April 1, 2007, when petitioning will start for the 2008 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, 2007.
READ: Cap on high-tech visas for 2007 already met, government says
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