Visa Application Surge Sign of Healing Economy?

Ed Lynch Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Applications for high-skilled immigration visas are expected to outplace the available supply in just days according to The Homeland Security Department. This has been one of the fastest runs on the very popular work permits in years and is seen as a sign of economic recovery and new hiring by technology companies in the United States.

The urgent race to secure one of the 85,000 so-called H-1B visas that are highly desired by Google, Apple, Microsoft, and other technology companies, coincides with congressional plans to increase the number offered to foreigners with technology experience.

The 2014 budget year visas became available on Monday and requests will be accepted through Friday at least. If there are more applications than availability in the first week, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will use a lottery to determine which companies get visas to award to prospective employees. The spokesman for the Citizenship and Immigration Services said that the agency would not know whether a lottery would be needed until next week at least. Robert Holleyman, president and CEO of the Software Alliance said, “It will be a frenzy, because the cap … is nowhere near high enough to meet demand.”

Immigration experts and attorneys predict that the visas will be snatched up much more quickly than in recent years. In the 2013 budget year that started last October, it took 10 weeks to hit the cap and in 2012, it took more than 33 weeks.

This issue is one that is trying to be reformed in Congress. “Our current immigration laws do not prioritize immigrants based on the skills and education they bring to our country,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He went on to say that the United States only selects approximately 12 percent of technologically savvy legal immigrants.

While reform has been one of the issues for years, Holleyman suggests that improvements to education in science, engineering, math and technology, as well as immigration reform, is the best way to make sure that U.S. employers have the skilled workers that they need.

Edwardl@longislandyellowpages.com

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Edward Lynch is a writer for the Long Island Yellow Pages Jobs & Careers section. If you have a press release that you'd like to share please send it to edwardl@longislandyellowpages.com

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