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News : H1B Visa – Immigration Reform 2013 – Cap Increase 65K to 110K – Passes Senate Judiciary committee

Big positive news for the all the US STEM Masters students and prospective highly skilled workers planning to come to America on H1B visa.  Today the Comprehensive Immigration Reform ( CIR) passed the Senate Judiciary committee after a long debate.  There are many aspects of the immigration bill, which got passed…But, in interest of our blog readers, we will cover the summary related to H1B Visas, Green card and Startup Visa and Comprehensive immigration bill changes.

Summary of H1B Visa Changes, Green Card, Startup Visa in 2013 Comprehensive Immigration Reform :  

  • The annual H1B Visas cap for highly skilled workers will be increased from 65,000 per year to 110,000 per year.
  • The advanced degree H1B cap for STEM degree holders from US schools, will be increased from 20,000 to 25,000 visas.
  • There are provisions mentioned in the bill that the H1B cap could be potentially increased to 180,000 per year, if there is extreme demand for highly skilled workers that fiscal year.
  • More stringent rules on H1B Visa approvals for companies that have about 15% of their workforce as H1B visa.  Essentially, strict rules for someone who are planning to abuse the H1b program.
  • No Green Card limits for individuals with extraordinary abilities, especially research fellows, Professors, MNC executives, athletes.
  • A new startup visa for encouraging foreign entrepreneurs to start companies in USA
  • A new 250,000 merit based visas to immigrate to USA. The point system will be based on education, employment, length of residence in US, etc.  The 55,000 diversity visa lottery program that is currently used today will be removed to cater to needs of employment and merit.

 

We will post detail in-depth analysis  in the upcoming articles.   The Comprehensive Immigration reform is a mammoth 867 Page document …Phewwwww!

 

Next Steps on 2013 Immigration Bill and H1B Visa changes  – Process ?

Current state is that the comprehensive bill passed Senate Judiciary committee with a 13 to 5 vote yesterday. Next step is to have this comprehensive immigration bill introduced in the Senate in next month for full round of debate. We will keep you posted with updates.

 

What are your thoughts ?  Do you think these changes are good enough for future H1B visa seekers?

 

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178 Comments

  1. Chinatown January 13, 2014 at 6:00 pm
    Your English is not that great either.

    — Don’t you know anything else “Chinatown”?

    Reply
  2. Nothing Yet on the BILL, the importance to bill is diminishing ,

    Any thughts guys ?

    http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/195764-obama-to-democrats-boehner-will-pass-immigration-reform-in-2014

    Reply
  3. Any News on CAP Increase or Is this BILL Dead as John Bohner said ? With the Election coming UP ?

    Special if we avoid these three companies- TCS / Infy – Everybody will get a visa and it will never go to lottery at all.

    See TCS Does 20,000 H1B Every Year Out of 65,000 CAP Limit.

    So is Infy as well.

    Read the Top VISA SPONSORS in My VISA JOBS Site.

    Reply
    • Giorgio,
      No changes announced yet. Seeing the disinterest in Republican party for the Senate bill, don’t have high hopes of anything happening anytime soon.

      Reply
  4. H-1B program is flawed beyond repair. It should be abolished in favor of something smarter. Corporations have no place being immigration middle men. Immigration is about something much more pure and sacrosanct than corporate profits. It needs to be abolished in favor of permanent immigration as opposed to corporate sponsorship. Immigration should be limited to 5% of net job gains each year. In years when we have job loss, It should be restricted. Off course there will be more people would applying than we have openings for. Then acceptance should be based on first come first serve basis. The case is about economics and national interest, and has nothing to do with race. The reason H1B visa holders are so easily exploited is because of corporate sponsorship. Green cards in sustainable numbers would make them equal players in the labor market. An H-1B visa amounts to second class labor and corporate sponsorship gives companies leverage against American workers wages and salary. This hurts American workers directly and it hurts us as a nation indirectly.

    Reply
  5. Hello,

    I believe this is a beautiful and worthfull bill for candidates who die to go USA and settle there !

    For those who wanted to work in USA liking the work culture over there, please move thru Merit based VISA’s, i guess thats the only legible option we have.
    They are not completely banning the entire H1 system they are just modifying it.

    So the below will not occur.

    The TOP 5 companies whihc hire :
    Canadidates that do not even know english talking and understanding come to USA make money for 7 yrs (extn+extn) buy a apartment, one villa then settle down in india.

    Aspiring candidates will love the work culture and settle down in USA and they are really good enough technically. But H1b thru Giant companies will always look for money save and go back, without paying mortgages, what is the benefit to US ? These guys only need dollars

    These guys thru High MNC’s come and work like 24 hrs a day and set wrong trends. why, when you are paid only for eight hours ? that too very less.
    then say americans work only 8 hours we work more, for what are you doing this ?

    Low Wages and High Work times ????

    Smart work and technically strong guys will resolute at a shorter time, for sure.

    All Mainframe/OLD Tech -even domain knowledge workers like bank employees become— managers, never understand the technical abilities frm the resources and simply send onsites for those are managers pets ???? what a politics within the company, playing GOD ???

    process so many H1B and many of my friends having a valid H1 never went onsite only because the manager did not release him, finally fed up, he loses all 3 years in india itself then the manager release him ? How Cruel ?

    Manager would be sending so many ppl USA with Fresh H1, tho he knows he has valid H1 resources,

    All these games will come to an end now with this BILL.

    What MNC’s did was ?

    Took dog like working resources, with repetative work and send them onsite. get all the pay from client and pay you pennies 4900$.

    thats it.

    Now resources who like to go, Go thru merit based Visas or Direct Client and get your pay and enjoy the work.

    Dont go to USA and say i dont like USA but just because of the dollar value am staying here, i have heard this atleast from 90% of all employees in H1, that is one way stealing ??? You are blocking the opprtunity for the GOOD people who wanted to buy home, live the american life and worship the culture.

    Now comes the check point

    I know many of my sentences above are TRUE TRUE TRUE. and only the right readers will appreciate it, many of the ppl fall under this category.

    Still dreaming of a onsite ?? for 7 yrs 8 yrs 9 yrs.

    No More dreaming this is the time to make the step.

    If there is TOEFL/IELTS, it would be even better, beating down all the stupids who do not know english or butler english can stay back and almost 50% of population will stay back.

    People with Good English Skill, Smart Tech Skills, Aspiring to USA for the life style, if they only travel onsite it would be awesome,….

    this bill will get that done. we need one more addition to this bill the IELTS as like the Australian Visas

    Reply
  6. Pavan and saurabh, this statement is wrong I believe- “H1 visa holder placement at client site is banned as per new rules”. I think the immigration bill suggests that of all the employees based out of the US only 15% can be on H1B. All others need to be Green card holders or US citizens. So still 15% of the US employees (i.e H1B folks) will continue to work at client sites as they do now. Dont think that H1B working at client side is totally banned. That restriction was for L1B and already L1 rejection is at an all time high this year. Obama seems to be focussed on getting the immigration bill passed in 2014. Cant say for sure though.

    Reply
  7. Hi Saurabh ,
    Thanks for your time . I have one consultant offering me H1 placing at client site . I f this new immigration bill becomes law, I suppose I will not get visa stamped because H1 visa holder placement at client site is banned as per new rules. Please tell me if this will be implemented from Oct 1 2014 .

    Reply
    • Pavan,
      The immigration bill is not the most important issue in front of US Congress at this moment. So don’t know when it will be passed but definitely not this year. Even then, we don’t know what the final version will be as the House can tweak the version passed by the Senate.

      Reply

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