Visa Cap Hit Before Start of Year

Staff Reporter -- Electronic News, 6/2/2006

The fiscal year doesn't even begin until October 1, but the government has already reached the limit on high-tech worker visas for 2007, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Thursday, leading many tech groups to call once again for reform.

2007 year marks the fourth year in a row that the cap has been met before the start of the fiscal year.

Currently, the government caps the annual allotment of H-1B visas at 65,000. The agency began accepting H-1B applications on April 1, and said the "final receipt date" for applications under the fiscal 2007 cap was reached on May 26.  Petitions received after May 26 will be rejected, the agency said.

"Hitting the H-1B cap four months before the start of the fiscal year is a clear sign that the visa process for highly educated workers is broken, and must be reformed this year," Lynn Shotwell, executive director of the American Council on International Personnel, a lobbying group, said in a statement.

The cap hasn't always been so low: Congress last raised the cap to 195,000 in 2000 to accommodate the U.S.'s technology boom. By the 2004 fiscal year, however, the cap was back down to 65,000. 

"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," Sandy Boyd, a VP of the National Association of Manufacturers added in a separate statement.

Immigration legislation passed by the Senate would increase the number of allotted visas to 115,000, but a House version of the bill did not address the issue. Congress has yet to reach a compromise.