Work Visa update (H-1B)

The H-1B is probably the bets known, in any case the most used and applied for work visa for European citizens. It grants you an initial period of three years and may extended to a total of six altogether. That's why it is so popular among US companies and foreign employees, also because there is no need to prove that no US worker was available provided the minimum requirements for the specialty occupation are being met. Due to the high demand, the number of available visas has almost doubled over the past years, but they are still not enough.

Unfortunately, there have been some mistakes and inconsistencies in 1999 as well, and they may have negative effects on the current fiscal year. Because of a computer error the INS accidentally issued 20,000 visas more than were available. This has again made the rather dry subject an increasingly political one, since this visa program is rather controversial anyway. Especially the way the INS handles the program is continuously a subject of political discussion.

The renowned American Immigration Lawyers Association already fears that the INS will use this as the excuse to shorten the number of available H-1B visas for this year, by the same number of visas that were issued too much last year. This could mean that the visas available for this year (originally 115,000) would all be assigned even before the process really started, a horror-like scenario for foreign employees since it again reduces the chances of getting a visa and they are hard enough to come by already. So we recommend to apply for the H-1B within the next few weeks - if it isn't already too late.

Latest news: the Senate has introduced some measures already and plans to solve everything as quickly as possible. The appropriate committee is to prepare a bill that can hopefully be passed by Congress this spring. This bill would increase the number of available 115,000 visas for this year by another 40,000 or 50,000.

In addition, the H-1B Visas for colleges, universities, and the associated research institutions, non-governmental institution and governmental research institutions would be excluded from the annual cap.

However, all these information has not yet been officially confirmed, we will keep you posted.