NZ Immigration

The Race for H1b Visas: Who are the Winners?

Is your company getting ready for the yearly H1B visa race? Are you hoping to process enough visas to meet personnel needs? Or are you one of the potential employees waiting to see whether the USCIS will allow you to enter the states on a temporary work visa? How will President-elect Obama's advisors impact the cap for these work visas? What kind of immigration reforms will take place?
Meet Department of Homeland Security nominee Janet Napolitano. Her confirmation hearing will be overseen by Senator Joseph Lieberman, an occasional friend and occasional foe of the H1B Visa Program and its reform. While both Ms. Napolitano and Mr. Lieberman have strongly pushed for an increase in the number of H1B visas issued each year, Mr. Lieberman is also a strong supporter of visa reform.
Ms. Napolitano's push for increasing the limit on the number of visas issued each year is based on the solid argument that the United States lacks skilled workers to fill the technology needs experienced by American companies. Although she couldn't achieve her desired reforms (this is controlled by Congress, and is currently set at 85,000), she could push to streamline the process, making the application much easier for persons with foreign degrees.
Another possible outcome of Napolitano's nomination as Director of Homeland Security is that students who earn American Degrees would have no difficulty obtaining an H1B visa after passing a background check. In fact, she pushes for attaching a green card to these students' diplomas! She believes this streamlining would help to keep technology workers, as well as the resultant innovations in design and technology, within the United States.
However, to successfully implement her ideas, Ms. Napolitano will probably be forced to rectify the many indiscretions that have become a part of the H1B program. In the past two years of reviewing applications, USCIS officials found that more than one-fifth of these applications violated federal rules and regulations. Even more so, certain trends surfaced in the violations.
First, some foreign academic credentials, which are required for persons seeking H1B visas, reference universities or diplomas that lack the correct credentials. Some applications contain falsified signatures. While some applications were processed for shell companies. In addition, some companies hired professionals to perform job duties not listed on the labor certificate.
Career Consulting International is a foreign education credential evaluation agency whose experts take care to ensure that their foreign academic credentials meet USCIS requirements. By keeping the agency's standards high, executive director Sheila Danzig ensures the agency's excellent reputation among immigration attorneys, USCIS officials, and business corporations. She is currently preparing for another booming H1B season rush.

About the Author:

Author and education expert Sheila Danzig is the executive director of Career Consulting International, a foreign credential evaluation agency that processes foreign degree evaluations for immigration visas, employment, and university admissions. For more information on foreign credential evaluations, visit The Degree People at www.thedegreepeople.com. Visit The Race for H1B Visas: Who are the Winners?.