A Senate committee yesterday once again entered the visa mine field, voting to double the number of H-1B visas to 115,000 starting in 2007. (The full Senate and House must also approve the measure — which is part of the Immigration Bill — and President Bush must sign it in order for it to take effect.)
H-1B visas are currently capped at 65,000 a year. The proposed measure would raise the cap to 115,000, with an option of raising the cap 20% more each year.
Tech companies claim they need high numbers of foreign citizens to fill the skills gap left by American workers. Others says that’s a copout: that there are plenty of Americans to fill those jobs and that companies are simply looking for cheaper sources of skilled labor.
The current H-1B limit is not 65K. As a matter of fact, there is no total limit. There’s a 6800 quota for people from Chile and Singapore. There are 20K for those with advanced degrees from US colleges & universities. There are 58,200 more for people with bachelor’s degrees. AND there are no limits whatsoever for those employed by governments (local, state, federal), by non-profits, colleges and universities.
Plus, there are an unlimited number of guest-workers brought in under L-1A and B (family), and 10,500 for similar kinds of guest-work for those from Australia.
Now, if employers were honest when they claimed they only wanted to bring in “the best and brightest”, “the pre-eminent”, the super-stars, then the total limit would be a lot closer to 5K per year.
Everything I have read has stated that there is a cap of 65,000 visas. There are some exemptions, as you note, which can raise that total. I wonder why, if there were indeed no limit, Congress would be bothering with this?
Another form of the shell game. Keep sending jobs off-shore. You mean to tell me there aren’t 65000 unemployed people in this country that couldn’t do these type of jobs with some training? Heaven forbid the gov’t sponsor such a crash training program. We can “react” fast enough.
The politicians and media keep feeding the masses fecal material and after a while, the masses believe all the talent IS off shore.
This is really a sad testiment to where our society and culture is going.
The current H-1B limit is not 65K. As a matter of fact, there is no total limit. There’s a 6800 quota for people from Chile and Singapore. There are 20K for those with advanced degrees from US colleges & universities. There are 58,200 more for people with bachelor’s degrees. AND there are no limits whatsoever for those employed by governments (local, state, federal), by non-profits, colleges and universities.
Plus, there are an unlimited number of guest-workers brought in under L-1A and B (family), and 10,500 for similar kinds of guest-work for those from Australia.
Now, if employers were honest when they claimed they only wanted to bring in “the best and brightest”, “the pre-eminent”, the super-stars, then the total limit would be a lot closer to 5K per year.
Everything I have read has stated that there is a cap of 65,000 visas. There are some exemptions, as you note, which can raise that total. I wonder why, if there were indeed no limit, Congress would be bothering with this?
Another form of the shell game. Keep sending jobs off-shore. You mean to tell me there aren’t 65000 unemployed people in this country that couldn’t do these type of jobs with some training? Heaven forbid the gov’t sponsor such a crash training program. We can “react” fast enough.
The politicians and media keep feeding the masses fecal material and after a while, the masses believe all the talent IS off shore.
This is really a sad testiment to where our society and culture is going.