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Eric Thomas or Frances Cox
202-822-9491
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 4, 2007 |
2008 Advanced Degree H-1B Visa Cap Reached in Record Speed
Compete America Urges Congress to Permanently Fix the Visa Program for Highly Educated Workers This Year as Part of Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Washington, D.C. – The announcement by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) that the 20,000 cap on FY 2008 H-1B advanced degree visas for U.S.-educated foreign students has already been reached was cited by Compete America today as further evidence of the urgent need for a permanent fix to the visa system this year. Earlier this month, the overall FY2008 H-1B visa cap was reached on the very first day applications were accepted, an unprecedented speed. Foreign graduates from U.S. universities are now effectively shut out of the U.S. job market.
“The crisis caused by arbitrary visa caps has now reached a new level, as the United States is in the perverse situation of welcoming some of the world’s brightest students to our universities, educating them and then telling them to go home and compete against us,” said Robert Hoffman, Vice President for Government and Public Affairs at Oracle and Co-Chair of Compete America. “The broken employment-based visa system is harming, not helping, U.S. competitiveness.”
In 2004, Congress exempted the 20,000 advanced degree visas from the overall 65,000 H-1B visa cap so that U.S.-educated, foreign-born mathematicians, scientists, doctors and engineers could be retained and expand the American workforce. Increasingly high demands for H-1B visas have proven the current H-1B allotments to be unrealistic and insufficient.
Hitting both the overall and advanced degree 2008 caps so early in the year is significant because moving forward we are showing foreign talent, often educated here in the United States, the door. Even though foreign students may be employed for 12 months of “optional practical training” following graduation, employment eligibility will expire for most in May or June of 2008, leaving a gap of several months before they may attempt to access new H-1B visas again when FY 2009 begins on October 1, 2008.
“While it is critical that we encourage more American students to pursue degrees in the fields of math, science, engineering and technology, the United States must, at the same time, remain competitive in the global market for talent,” said Jenifer Verdery, Director of Workforce Policy at Intel Corporation and Co-Chair of Compete America. “It is imperative that Congress reform the visa process for highly educated foreign professionals this year.”
Compete America (www.competeamerica.org) is a coalition of corporations, educators, research institutions and trade associations concerned about legal, employment-based immigration and committed to ensuring that the United States has the highly educated workforce necessary to ensure continued innovation, job creation and leadership in a worldwide economy.
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