Back to Index

Rush for US H-1B visas

          New Delhi: The US Embassy in Delhi has run out of H1-B visas. The Embassy had a provision for offering 65,000 visas for the financial year beginning October 1. But the number of Indian applicants was 150,000 on the first day. Only 65,000 of them could be accommodated, forcing the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to close the process within a day. The harassed USCIS has now announced that the visa winners will be chosen through a computerised random selection procedure. The H-1B visas are for professionals like software engineers, architects, engineers, accountants and other skilled workers. In 2006, H-1B visa allowance exhausted in two months. That was considered a record then. According to USCIS Spokesperson Chris Bentley the draw will take weeks before the results are announced. "It will take a number of weeks to sort through this volume of mail," a local daily quoted Bentley as saying. Among the American companies in the hiring queue are Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, HP and Oracle. Leading American companies have been pressing the US Congress to raise the H-1B cap of 65,000 visas plus 20,000 reserved for foreign nationals with a master's or doctorate degree from US universities.
-April 5,  2007