H-1B Visa Article

H-1B Visa from Houston

The Houston Chronicle published an article on H-1B visas, angling with the usual focus on Silicon Valley but also adding a focus on Houston. It notes that Houston is a city with many businesses relying on the H-1B visa, which allows skilled foreign national workers to work in the United States with a sponsoring employer for a maximum of two 3 year periods.

The article’s focus (outside the geographic locations) is on the number available. It recites the history of the H-1B visa: Congress set a cap of 65,000 in 1990 and added 20,000 visas with a specific Master’s and above category in the United States. There is an unfortunate conflation with the H-1B visa as the sole work visa program, as there are plenty of other employment-based visas in the United States: E, L, O, P. Regardless, the article’s concentration on the H-1B visa situation highlights the geographic and wider country limits on the visa and how certain employers are lobbying for more availability. The cap has not always remained stagnant. There was a period of increasing availability that ended in 2004. (the article omits this).

The practical implications of the low supply of H-1B visas versus the high demand is that applicants are subject to a lottery. Rather than being adjudicated on the merits, the application must first be selected to be adjudicated. Last year, there were 250,000 applications vying for adjudication. All H-1B visa applications must be submitted within a specific timeframe and the visa, if approved, begins on October 1. There are exceptions, as there are certain H-1B visas that are “cap-exempt.”