By Tian DuBelko
Last Friday, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it has already reached the congressionally mandated threshold of H-1B visas for the new fiscal year.
The H-1B is a popular visa that allows skilled foreigners to come work in the U.S. Each year, 85,000 visas are allotted, including 20,000 for foreign workers with advanced degrees from the U.S. It’s popular with the tech industry, and this is the fifth year in a row that the H-1B visa cap has been reached in less than five days.
Major U.S. employers such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are among the leaders in H-1B visa applications. On the other hand, Indian IT companies aimed at the American market, such as HCL, TCS, and Infosys are among the major users as well.
The H-1B visa application opens each year on April 1, and the USCIS uses a lottery system to determine which applications are selected for a visa. These selected applications are then subject to review before getting final approval.
U.S. President Donald Trump had made campaign promises to end the lottery system for H1B visas, but the lottery for the 2018 fiscal year opened on Monday without changes.
