Feds Receive Record Number of Applications for High-Tech Visas

WASHINGTON — Requests for H-1B visas reached an all-time high this year, with nearly 163,000 applications received in five days, federal officials said Thursday.

Because of the volume, Citizenship and Immigration Services will conduct a random lottery to award the 65,000 visas allowed by law for highly educated foreign workers. In addition, another 20,000 will be given to foreign citizens with advanced degrees from American universities, under a special exemption.

"This is the best way to be fair to everybody," said Chris Rhatigan, a spokeswoman for USCIS, about the random selection process.

The applications that are not picked will be rejected and returned along with the application fee, she said.

High-tech companies — faced with the prospect of thousands of rejected applications — denounced the visa limit.

"U.S. employers deserve better than a random lottery to determine if they can hire the highly educated candidates they need," said Robert Hoffman, co-chair of Compete America, a coalition of high tech companies that includes Oracle, Google, Inc. and Microsoft Corp. "Congress has failed to address the problem as U.S. universities graduate highly educated individuals who leave to work in competitor nations. This madness must end this year."

High-tech companies have been lobbying aggressively to increase the cap but have not been successful in recent years. They say that the scarcity of visas deprives them of the best talent and undermines their ability to compete globally. The H-1B visas allow foreigners to work in the United States for up to six years.

Last month, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates lobbied for more of the permits, which he said are needed to fill engineering, computer programming and other jobs that would otherwise go vacant.

Critics, however, say that the H-1B program depresses wages for U.S. workers and is being abused by outsourcing firms.

Ron Hira, a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, said the program lets companies displace American workers and pay below-market wages.

The hunger of U.S. companies for cheaper labor, Hira said, is one reason that the flood of H-1B applications is not surprising.

Hira said his research shows that 89 of the 200 companies that used H-1B visas the most in 2007 are outsourcing firms.

"The run on H-1Bs is caused by a thirst for lower-wage workers and the rise of the offshore outsourcing industry," he said.

In Congress, several bills would increase the cap on H-1Bs, including one by Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Smith's bill — the SUSTAIN Act or Strengthening United States Technology And Innovation Act — would raise the annual cap for H-1B visas to 195,000 in 2008 and 2009.

He said it is an "emergency fix" that would help U.S. companies stay competitive while Congress takes a look at reforming the H-1B program to make sure American workers are not being displaced and that U.S.-owned companies are given preference.

Another measure, by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., would double the H-1B visa cap to 130,000.

In the Senate, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and other lawmakers re-introduced a measure this week that would give companies access to 150,000 previously unused H-1B visas. They would be distributed over a three-year period.

"This legislation creates interim relief for American businesses, large and small, to help maintain our competitiveness in a global market," Cornyn said Thursday.

In addition, Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., sponsored a bill that would allow more highly educated foreign students to receive green cards.

The New American Innovators Act would exempt foreign students receiving doctorate degrees from U.S. universities from numerical immigration limits.

The lawmakers said that between 1995 and 2005, one quarter of all start-up U.S. engineering and technology firms had at least one foreign-born founder. By 2005, those companies produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers.

"We need to be able to retain these highly skilled individuals so that our nation can retain its competitive edge. If we don't, we risk losing them to our international economic rivals," said McCaul.

He said he is "hopeful" that Congress will adopt the bill, "along with other common sense measures."

On the Web:

Compete America: www.competeamerica.org

Citizesnhip and Immigration Services: www.uscis.gov