H-1B visa cap reached in one week, says USCIS

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the US federal immigration authority, has received more applications than the mandated 85,000 visas for the highly-skilled, mostly information technology professionals within a week of opening of visa registration.

The US authorities said yesterday it had received nearly 50,000 packages of H-1B visa applications on the first day itself.

With a surge in demand of the country's most sought after work visas for the IT professionals, the US immigration authorities plan to go for a computerised draw of lots to decided which companies will receive the H-1B applicants.

This the first time after 2008 that the USCIS decides to go for a computerised draw of lots to decide on the companies which will receive them.

The USCIS, which started accepting applications for the 85,000 H-1B visas on Monday, decided to stop receiving further applications by close of office hours on Friday, the agency said.

The US authorities have already said the demand for highly-skilled professionals far exceeded visa availability and the only alternative was to go for a computer-based lottery.

The USCIS said it would no longer accept applications for the H-1B visas for the fiscal year 2014 beginning 1 October 2013 after receiving sufficient applications for the Congressional mandated cap of 65,000.

USCIS said it also received more than 20,000 H-1B applications under the advanced degree cap, which is over and above the 65,000 cap.

''USCIS will use a computer-generated random selection process (commonly known as the ''lottery'') for all FY 2014 cap-subject petitions received through April 5, 2013,'' the statement said.

''The agency will conduct the selection process for advanced degree exemption petitions first. All advanced degree petitions not selected will be part of the random selection process for the 65,000 limit,'' USCIS said.

USCIS, however, did not provide the exact number of visa applications received, nor did it announce any date for the random selection process.

USCIS said it would, however, continue to accept and process petitions that are otherwise exempt from the cap.

Meanwhile, US vice president Joe Biden supported the idea of increasing H-1B visa quota so as to attract the best and the brightest from across the world.

Like Biden there are several others like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his chief policy advisor John Feinblatt and Neil Ruiz, an associate fellow at the Brookings Institution, who support increased H-1B quota to make America attractive to the brightest and best minds.