H1B visa: Cap reached; lottery later this week

NDTV Reports: A lottery later this week would decide the fate of thousands of skilled professionals, a significantly large number of them from India, who have applied for the sought after H1B visas, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on Tuesday.

The USCIS's announcement came a day after it stopped receiving petitions for H1B work visa for the fiscal beginning in October this year. In a statement, USCIS said, it has received enough petitions to meet the congressional mandated cap.

As approved by the US Congress, the USCIS for the fiscal year beginning on October 1, 2008 can approve a maximum of 65,000 H1B visas and another 20,000 for those having Masters or higher degree from a US university.

The applications for the same were received between April 1 to April 7 by the USCIS.

Although the agency did not divulge the number of H1B petitions it received during the five business days, a USCIS spokesperson told NDTV that it is likely to cross the last year figures. Last year 1,33,000 H1B petitions were received.

''We expect to receive more (petitions) than last year as in 2007 the process was closed on the second day itself as against five days this time,'' the official said. This is the fifth consecutive year that the H1B cap has been reached before the start of the fiscal year.

As expected, the lottery would be done in two phases - enough to select the number of petitions needed to meet the cap of 65,000 in general category and 20,000 under the ''advanced degree'' exemption limit. Rest of the petitions would be rejected and filing fees would be returned.

Once the process of lottery is over, the USCIS would send the approved petitions to the State Department, which issues the visas through its consulates and embassies all over the world.

Simultaneously, it would send approval notifications to successful applicants and their companies. The process is expected to be completed in about a fortnight.

The US needs to realise how much it really needs Indian skilled workers. It will only help America to allow more Indian citizens into the country. Its about time it liberalizes its Visa regime. Watched an interesting report on this issue on NDTV last night. I'm glad i got the DirecTV connection... you should get it too.