Immigration News
20,000 H-1Bs Reserved for U.S. Advanced Degree Graduates
Exhausted: Reaching the H-1B Master's Cap Shows Need for Visa Reform
August 1, 2006
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that,
as of July 26th, it had received enough H-1B petitions for "foreign
workers who have earned a master's degree or higher from a U.S.
institution of higher education" to meet the exemption limit
of 20,000 established by Congress for fiscal year (FY) 2007. This
is on top of having reached the overall H-1B cap of 65,000 on May
6, more than four months before the start of the fiscal year.
Both the House and Senate have introduced the Securing Knowledge
Innovation and Leadership Bill, ("SKIL Bill", S.2691/H.R.
5744), a measure that would provide much needed reform to the H-1B
visa system. Highlights of the SKIL Bill include the following:
1. Exemptions for U.S.-educated foreign workers with master's or
higher degrees from the H-1B and employment based (EB) green card
quotas so their talent can be retained in the United States.
2. Creation of a flexible, market-based H-1B cap so that U.S.
employers are not locked out of hiring critical talent for over
a year at a time.
3. Extension of foreign students' post-graduation practical training
from 12 months to 24 months.
4. Removal of employment-based immigrant spouses and children
from the count against the annual green card limit, thus making
more visas available for the innovative professionals we need.
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