Last Call for H-1B Visa Petition Filing!
It is a cruel irony that April 1 is both April fool’s day and the filing deadline for H-1B visa petitions for skilled foreign workers with scientific, technical or engineering skills. If you are the relocation specialist in your HR department, or the recruiter challenged by a tight budget, or the line manager in need of foreign workers with the skill sets critical to develop the new software product that will save the company, you’re doing a lot of deep breathing these days. That’s because you and thousands of your peers are in the final stretch of the race to the H-1B visa filing deadline.
If you haven’t begun yet, you must start today working with your legal counsel to file the required petitions for the H-1B talent you have identified. On April 1 United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will begin accepting H1-B petitions for the fiscal year 2010 H1-B quota (which begins on October 1, 2009). Last year USCIS received petitions far in excess of the 65,000 cap (of which 6800 visas are reserved for nationals of Singapore and Chile) on the first day of filing. Even in the current economic slowdown leading immigration law firms expect a similar tsunami of filings with the same result – a random lottery-type final selection process.
If any of your H-1B candidates holds a Master’s Degree or PhD granted by a college or university in the US, you have a little more breathing room, but not much. There is an additional quota of 20,000 visas for candidates who meet these criteria. Expectation though is that the additional quota number will be exhausted in the first few days after the 4/1 deadline as was the case last year. USCIS holds a separate master’s cap lottery and those not selected are given a second chance by being entered in the regular H-1B lottery.
In addition to the new technical talent recruited by your company, you should review the status of any students currently employed and working under F-1 employment authorization, known as Optional Practical Training or “OPT”. These employees need H-1B visas to continue working after their OPT work permits expire. In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) granted “cap-gap” relief to F-1 students whose employers file H-1B petitions on their behalf before April 1. Under the DHS provision, qualifying students selected in the lottery can continue their employment under legal status even if their OPT permit expires in the “gap” before they are awarded their H-1 B visa on October 1, 2009.
If your company has registered for and is in good standing with the federal government’s e-Verify Program, some of your student employees may be eligible for a 29 month employment authorization giving them as many as three chances to apply for the H-1B visa. This applies only to employees with degrees in science, technology, engineering or math – the critical “STEM” skills in such short supply among American students who are also citizens.
Also be aware that any TN employees (from Mexico or Canada) beginning the green card process may have to convert to an H-1B visa in the interim.
So the race is on and the stakes are high as American companies seek to secure the critical technical skills we need to survive in a global marketplace ever more competitive. Don’t be caught napping and be made an April fool by the H-1B visa deadline!
Posted on 03/2/2009 in Global Mobility | Comments (1)
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