On April 28, 2023, USCIS announced that for Fiscal Year 2024 (begins October 1, 2023), it received 758,994 eligible H1B registrations. This is an astonishing number compared to the 474,421 registrations received in Fiscal Year 2023, and even more astonishing compared to the 85,000 visa numbers available per fiscal year. When Congress slashed the number of H1B visas available per fiscal year in 2004, it negatively impacted US companies who need to hire skilled workers under the H1B classification, and no changes have been made since then to bring the program in line with demand and a changing global economy.
Each year the numbers continue to increase – Fiscal Year 2022 had 301,447 eligible registrations and Fiscal Year 2021 had 269,424. The dramatic upward trend in the number of registrations is a clear indication that the cap set by Congress is out of touch with the needs of US potential employers.
H1B visas are only available for foreign workers who have a minimum of a US bachelor’s degree (or the equivalent) and 20,000 of the 85,000 cap are reserved for foreign nationals with US Master’s degrees. This limitation in H1B visa numbers not only negatively impacts US companies who need the services of foreign highly educated workers, but also foreign students who have come to the US to seek higher education, paying much higher fees to our US schools than US born students. These foreign students contribute financially to our US institutions of higher education, as well as to the communities in which they live for four or more years while studying in the US. They also contribute to our nation in general, sharing their cultures with us and learning about all the US has to offer.
If these US educated students are not able to get jobs in the US due to this unrealistic H1B cap, the loss is ours – they will go to other countries and use their skills and education to benefit a nation other than the one that educated them.