Thread started: Dec 16 2009, 2:28 PM EST
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CIR ASAP proposes increasing the number of employment-based visas, such as H-1Bs, that can be granted annually by permitting the "recapture" of unused visas from previous years. This would allow employers to essentially dip into the pool of 309,500 unused H-1B visas left over from 1992 to 2008, said Alex Nowrasteh, policy analyst at Competitive Enterprise Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit think tank based in Washington, D.C.
Currently, the annual cap on H-1B visas is 85,000. That includes 65,000 general H-1B visas and 20,000 H-1B exemptions set aside for aliens with advanced degrees. As of Dec. 11, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it had received 62,900 general H-1B visa petitions and had reached the cap of 20,000 advanced degree exemptions for fiscal 2010, which began Oct. 1, 2009.
Until this year and the current weak overall job market, the U.S. had a string of several years in which the cap on H-1B visas was hit within days of the U.S. accepting applications each April for the next fiscal year.
The IT industry has long been lobbying Congress to raise the annual cap on H-1B visas, saying employers have had to turn away much-needed talent that can't be easily found among American workers, hurting U.S. global competitiveness. Opponents to H-1B visas have also pushed for reforms, alleging that many employers abuse the program by displacing Americans with lower-paid foreign workers.
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