Save up to $300/year on phone billsH-1B update: Number of requests grew this year
The number of petitions for H-1B temporary workers filed for next year increased overall by about 20 percent this time around, U.S. immigration officials said this week.
On Tuesday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it had closed this year's application window, having received more than enough petitions to meet a congressionally mandated cap of 65,000 visas and fill another 20,000 slots for foreigners holding advanced degrees from U.S. universities. But it didn't immediately reveal the number of petitions it had received.
USCIS said on Thursday that according to a "preliminary" count, it had received more than 163,000 petitions, of which about 31,200 pertained to the visas for advanced degree holders, between April 1 and April 7. Per a recent rule, USCIS plans to conduct a random computer selection process to narrow down the petitions received during those first five days of the application window.
For comparison's sake, last year, USCIS received about 133,000 applications (PDF of press release) within the first two days of the filing window, but only 12,989 of those petitions were filed on behalf of foreigners with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions. It wasn't until the end of April that USCIS determined it had received enough petitions to fill the 20,000 cap-exempt spots.
The number of petitions may have climbed a bit more if the Department of Homeland Security hadn't recently declared that filing duplicate applications would result in all of a company's petitions for a particular worker being tossed out.
Those numbers, by the way, don't include renewals for existing employees or certain nonprofit and research institutions that are exempt from the cap, said Chris Ratigan, a USCIS spokesman, despite claims to the contrary by Sen. Chuck Grassley on Thursday.
Grassley and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have voiced concern about abuse of the visas--particularly by Indian outsourcing firms--and have backed a bill that would require employers hoping to hire H-1B workers to do more to fill those posts with Americans first.
In response to ongoing requests from high-tech companies like Microsoft and Oracle, members of the House of Representatives have already proposed doubling or tripling the cap on H-1B visas going forward. And late on Thursday, Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) offered up a measure of their own that would, among other things, raise the baseline H-1B cap to 115,000 and the advanced-degree exemption to 30,000 visas for the next three years. It would also allow the government to "recapture" and redistribute 150,000 unused H-1B visas from previous years and raise the H-1B filing fees by 50 percent (from $1,500 to $2,250).
Applicants with masters's or above (graduated in the US): < 66% chance
Applicants with bachelor's (world-wide): < 50% chance
Constitution, and system and become a citizen...
investment needs to start now
I am a development manager, in the Silicon Valley.
In the last 6 months I ran 2 java/C++ developer job adds, each recieved in excess of 20 resumes, many candidates were qualified. I had my pick, and in the end the only factor was would they come in at the right (AKA lowest) price.
There is always tremendous pressure, when your a manager, to keep salaries as low as possible, especially.
Further, companies like Microsoft, Google reject 99% of resumes that come in. I have been very successful in development (been at my current job for 8+ years), and I have applied to both companies, (for non-Senior programming jobs), and I haven't heard from either company. At the same time, several people who knew someone on the inside of these companies were interviewed and hired.
Don't believe corporate hype, period. There is no tech-worker shortage, there is in fact a glut of tech workers out there.
If you believe that there is a tech worker shortage, then you probably also believe that oil companies aren't making a killing off the U.S. economy right now.
Why am I writing this?
* Although I manage a development group, I am also a technology worker.
* U.S. Tech workers are skilled, experienced, and efficient. I want business to be efficient, so let's not fool ourselves into thinking that cheap labor equals efficiency.
http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?EditorialsID=1974
http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/6482
Most h-1b visas are wasted on starting-level IT jobs:
http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/back407.html
Green cards are being issued to people without even trying to find a U.S. citizen. I have seen this first hand, where Green cards were issued to people in Software Quality assurance (jobs a game tester could do). But if you don't believe me, see the video by the immigration attorneys used by the client of "Compete America":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
A report from the National Accounting Office of the United Stated has found that people on h-1b Visas are regularly being paid 20% less than their U.S. Citizen counterparts.
The h-1b program is being used to out-source U.S. jobs:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/12/business/visa.php?page=2
There is no shortage of qualified technology worker, just a shortage of technology workers are the low-low prices.
With rent in Silicon Valley at typically at 2000$/mth how can a Technology worker live on less than 40k a year, yet many h-1b visas are issued for far less than this.
http://www.bendweekly.com/Opinion/4670.html
Check out the following:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/feb2007/db20070208_553356.htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17048048/
The typical U.S. citizen is being saddled with 9 trillion dollars in National debt, by the Bush Administration.
Typical U.S. citizen is born with more cost in debt service per year than the wages of your typical Indian programmer.
Gasoline is prices are going the roof. Because of Corporate lobbying groups. Hey I am spending more driving to work, now, than the average Indian worker.
And the lobbying group "Compete America" is crass euphemism (double-speak) for the continuing fire sale that is destroying the U.S. economy.
http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?EditorialsID=1974
And until just recently, I was like a lot of people. I had no idea what somebody has to go through to qualify for a temporary working visa. Believe me, it makes filing your income tax seem like a walk through the park - and in the end, there's no guarantee you'll be approved. The entire process so insane that it's hard to describe properly. But to give you an idea, here's a word of advice I found at Nolo.com:
"Whatever you do, don't go straight to USCIS for advice. The people who staff their front desk are not all well trained, and if they give you wrong information, they take no responsibility, even if it causes your deportation or destroys your chances of immigrating. This happens!"
More than ever, we need to have economic policies that are based on sound reasoning, not vague idealogical precepts and bi-partisan political rhetoric. And if we want U.S. businesses to be competitive and to grow, wouldn't it be better to allow them to hire qualified employees here, even if some of them are temporary foreigners workers, rather than force them to move those jobs overseas, where it would benefit our economy little?
Let's be honest. We're a consumer driven economy and our power is what we can buy. We can't do that if the jobs are not here. To have jobs we need businesses who provide them. Businesses exist if there are opportunities worth investing in. Those opportunities reside in having a competitive advantage. None of that means anything if that advantage is elsewhere. That's the bottom line.
http://www.economist.com/world/na/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=11016270
It also says: "The Labour Department projects that by 2014 there will be more than 2m job openings in science, technology and engineering, while the number of Americans graduating with degrees in those subjects is plummeting."
Of course the Economist (a conservative British magazine), is going to be pro unrestricted h-1b NON-immigrant VISA.
And it's no surprize this same company was not alarmed at the high oil prices. (of course it's only natural, the market will correct itself). After you've lost you medical insurance, your job, and your house...
http://www.energybulletin.net/5846.html
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by mengqi062488
June 23, 2008 4:24 PM PDT
- Companies should be free to hire whomever they choose and people should be allowed to work for whomever they choose. Bureaucracy is what makes communist countries backward, and it is now eroding the capitalist foundations that made America strong - competition, unrestricted work opportunities, and unlimited immigration. In fact the country boomed in the early 20-th century like China is booming now because of a large influx of immigrants. Most Americans are the descendants of immigrants from Europe. If they dislike immigration, their parents should not have come - consequently THEY should not have come.
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See all 38 Comments >>Some Americans do not welcome immigrants for one simple reason - they do not want to bother with improving their own skills and would rather lay down and watch TV. If they still believe in capitalistic, free competition, they should make themselves more marketable rather than complaining that immigrants are taking away the jobs.
The economic principle of comparable advantage further suggests that Americans need to focus on jobs they are good at, while giving away other jobs. Had the shirts and pants been made in America they would be prohibitively expensive for the middle class. And most American students do not bother with difficult subjects such as science and engineering. However the service sector in America is quite good and people should focus on that, while letting immigrants do the things they are good at.