Rule on H-1B visa delayed by Biden administration
Proposed plan to switch H-1B visa application selection from lottery to wage-based delayed until end of the year.
A downtown perspective of commercial buildings, including Salesforce in San Francisco, Calif. (Lelia Figueroa / Golden Gate Xpress)
The policy of the H-1B visa program, a non-immigrant visa allowing foreign workers to be employed by U.S. companies, is being delayed by the Biden administration until Dec. 31, 2021. This delay gives more time for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to test and develop plans for the program moving forward.
USCIS receives more applications for the H-1B visas than can be accepted. World Education Services reported over 200,000 applications were received by the U.S. government in 2020. As a result, the applications run through an electronic registration process as a lottery system to randomly select applicants.
The U.S. issues around 85,000 H-1B visas each year, which includes 20,000 for applicants that have earned a masters’ degree. According to The Economic Times, a large number of these applicants went to Big Tech, which includes Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft.
“I think it should be increased,” said Alka Madan, immigration consultant of Bay Area Immigration Services regarding the cap on H-1B visas accepted each year. “The applicants are up to 250,000 so you can see how many more people apply for the jobs.”
Toward the end of the Trump administration, Trump officials issued regulations to restrict and deny H-1B visas. They wanted to switch the H-1B visa selections from a lottery system to a system based on wages, as reported by the National Immigration Forum.
More recently, the Biden administration announced they are going to allow the standard lottery distribution for this year while considering if they should instead hand it out to companies paying the most in the future.
“We need to know which specific positions we are talking about here in companies. Which companies and which specific positions are these companies looking to hire?” said Michael Koehn, member of the leadership team at Brownie Mary Democratic Club.
SGM Law Group stated that employees under the H-1B visa program are employed under specialized or heavily sought-after skills, which typically land in the tech industry. The workers are given a three-year period, which is followed by the option to apply for an extension for three additional years.
H-1B workers are able to bring their children under 21-years-old, their spouses and other dependents to the U.S. They’re also able to transfer to different employers by submitting an H-1B transfer petition, according to SGM Law Group.
The San Francisco Bay Area remains as an epicenter for the tech industry. According to My Visa Jobs, the H-1B visa program provides foreign talent for America’s tech giants, such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, Intel and Facebook, by giving them more skilled workers who were previously not eligible to work in the U.S.
“I hire H-1B visa people for my business,” said Madan. “It is a good program in the sense that there is a skill shortage in the U.S. There is no doubt about that. This visa helps us get good people skill-wise, also they work hard to keep their visas and keep everybody happy. It’s a good program.”
However, members of the Brownie Mary Democratic Club’s leadership team, like David Goldman, feel that jobs for U.S. citizens should be a priority before hiring non-citizens to work in their industry.
“I think it’s an excuse to pay lower wages to people from other countries,” Goldman said.
“Until these companies can prove to me that they cannot find enough Americans, then I do not believe that there should be any H-1B visas issued to anyone. All Americans who are qualified for the jobs should get their jobs first.”
Enrollment for H-1B visas for 2022 will begin on March 9, followed by the lottery results issued by March 31.
jake_leone • Feb 25, 2021 at 6:03 pm
The truth about why H-1b visas are in high demand is contained in the DOJ indictment of Facebook on 2600+ counts of fraud on Federal documents related to the Green Card process.o
The information contained in that Federal Document was obtained under the threat of a felony Federal Obstruction of Justice charge.
CEO and executives can say anything they want to the Press and the public. But the truth is contained in that indictment and it is completely the opposite of what the Big Tech CEO’s are saying.
The reality is that a person who is waiting in the Green Card line, is stuck at the same company forever until the Green Card arrives. That’s the kind security you just can’t buy, it has to be provided by a messed up Green Card system, that motivate employers to disregard local better qualified IT workers, for the sake of an indentured foreign worker.
jake_leone • Feb 24, 2021 at 4:41 pm
The truth about why H-1b visas are in high demand is contained in the DOJ indictment of Facebook on 2600+ counts of fraud on Federal documents related to the Green Card process.
The information contained in that Federal Document was obtained under the threat of a felony Federal Obstruction of Justice charge.
CEO and executives can say anything they want to the Press and the public. But the truth is contained in that indictment and it is completely the opposite of what the Big Tech CEO’s are saying.
The reality is that a person who is waiting in the Green Card line, is stuck at the same company forever until the Green Card arrives. That’s the kind security you just can’t buy, it has to be provided by a messed up Green Card system, that motivate employers to disregard local better qualified IT workers, for the sake of an indentured foreign worker.
Jake Leone • Feb 24, 2021 at 10:55 am
You can’t trust statements from executives in the tech industry. There is no penalty for lying or exaggeration when speaking to the public.
When those same executives talk with Federal investigators, we get an entirely different set of data from them. Keep in mind, that when you lie, deceive, or give any kind of false information to a Federal investigator, you will face a felony obstruction of justice charge. The same charge that landed Martha Stewart (a billionaire) in jail.
You need to read the DOJ indictment of Facebook in the case involving 2600+ cases of fraud in the Green Card Perm process, over just a 1.5 year period.
In that indictment (which is available online from DOJ), Facebook admits it finds 30x more local STEM/IT engineers than it can hire. Facebook admits, that the jobs that these 30+/(job ad) local STEM/IT people are qualified for, are actually much more difficult than the jobs being held by foreign workers undergoing the Green Card PERM process.
Facebook never forwards the resumes of the 29+/(per single job ad), better qualified local STEM/IT workers, to the hiring managers involved in the PERM process.
Facebook hid the jobs ads for the PERM process, in 2 print editions of the Sunday SF Chronicle. Facebook said “no” to the Chronicle’s Free offer to put these jobs ads on the Chronicle website. Facebook just had to say “yes” instead of “no” for this free advertising. And Facebook didn’t post the PERM jobs ads on their own website.
Facebook hid these PERM jobs ads (which are used as evidence that there are no locally qualified workers that could assume the foreign worker’s jobs) from the public. In order to protect foreign workers from having to compete with better qualified local STEM/IT workers.
Facebook then lied on Federal forms, saying it made a good faith effort to find qualified local workers, when it fact Facebook made a “Bad” faith effort. And that lie is the basis of the Federal lawsuit.
Keep in mind that the DOJ routinely settles such cases of fraud for 100,000$ per violation. Facebook violated the law 2600+ times, over just a 1.5 year period.
We have to ask ourselves why would a company protect foreign workers from having to compete with better qualified local STEM/IT workers. Well the reason (the motive to commit these crimes) is also in the DOJ indictment.
A worker waiting in the Green Card cue for a Green Card (after having gone through the PERM process), cannot leave the company that got them into the Green Card cue, until the Green Card is issued.
For workers from India, the Green Card wait is stretching into decades. So Facebook is highly motivated to PREFER foreign workers, because of this Green Card wait. Not because the foreign workers are more skilled, not because Facebook cannot find local candidates (which by Facebook’s own admission to Federal investigators, Facebook routinely finds 30x more STEM/IT workers than it can hire).
Facebook protects foreign workers from local competition, and commits Federal Immigration fraud, because foreign workers do not have the same rights as Americans. And if that doesn’t disgust you, what will?