Frances Cox or Eric Thomas 202/822-9491 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 30, 2009

New Fiscal Year Begins with Thousands
of Unused H-1B Visas

Drop in Demand Seen as Evidence that Market Cap Would Work

Washington, D.C. – For the first time since 2005, the statutory cap on the number of H-1B visas granted to highly educated foreign professionals to work in the United States has not been reached by the start of the new federal fiscal year, providing support for the adoption of a market based allocation of H-1B visas.

As of September 18, 2009, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had announced that approximately 46,000 H-1B petitions had been filed, even though 65,000 visas are available for FY 2010, which begins October 1, 2009. This leaves approximately 19,000 H-1B visas unused at the beginning of FY 2010.

An additional 20,000 H-1B visas are set-aside each year for advanced degree recipients from U.S. universities.  USCIS has announced that approximately 20,000 applications have been received, which means visas reserved for foreign students holding Ph.D. and master’s degrees from U.S. universities should soon be reached.

“This year’s numbers tell a story,” said Jenifer Verdery, Director of Workforce Policy at Intel Corporation.  “Contrary to the claims of H-1B critics, if importing cheap foreign labor were the goal of H-1B visa employers, these visas would have been gone on the first day applications were accepted last spring.  That hasn’t happened.  In slow economic times, such as today, the demand decreases and the market takes over – which is as it should be.”

Compete America has long advocated for a market-based allocation for H-1B visas to replace the inflexible and arbitrary statutory cap that exists today, as well as fixing the employment-based green card program to clean up the tremendous backlogs in the system and to provide a streamlined path for foreign students graduating from U.S. universities. 

“We need to expand the pipeline of American students graduating with certain technical degrees, but until that happens, U.S. employers seeking the best and brightest talent must be able to include foreign nationals in their search.  The U.S. economy will benefit from an immigration policy that permits U.S. companies to employ the top talent from here and abroad” said Amy Scott, co-chair of Compete America and Assistant Vice President for Federal Relations, the Association of American Universities.

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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