Sept. 16 - Foreign worker visa cap reached

Immigration visas are divided into three areas, Durham said:

• Immigrant visas, which are permanent visas usually called green cards

• Nonimmigrant visas that are temporary, which include H-1B visas

• Miscellaneous visas that include student and visitor visas

The H-1B visa is “generally capped at six years, issued in normally two 3-year increments,” “Durham said. “Most organizations are subject to an annual limitation.”

Only up to 85,000 new H-1B visas are issued each fiscal year, which will begin Oct. 1, with renewals not included. Of that 85,000, 65,000 are regular H-1Bs with 20,000 reserved for those holding a U.S. master’s degree or higher, Durham said.

“What immigration did is they have a lottery when there’s more demand for H-1Bs then there are these 85,000 visas,” he said.

Employers have to register in March each year through the electronic registration system, pay a fee and enter basic information.

“Normally, when employers are doing this it’s for an individual that most likely on-boarded when they were a student,” Durham said.

For example, a foreign national student with a student visa who graduates from an Indiana college is normally eligible for one year of practical training, Durham said. That can be extended to two years for some students, such as science, technology, engineering, and math majors. “That’s how an employer normally encounters an individual that’s going to need an H-1B later,” Durham said.

H-1Bs are reserved for special occupations that have “a specialized body of knowledge that you normally acquire with at least a specific bachelor’s degree,” he said.

To get the H-1Bs, “the government set a really high bar,” requiring employers to pay the visa holder the higher of the actual wage or the prevailing wage, Durham said.

The actual wage would be what they pay for employees for the job. The prevailing wage is set by the U.S. Department of Labor.

“It’s to protect U.S. workers, definitely, by not allowing an employer to bring in foreign nationals to undercut U.S. wages,” Durham said.

For more on the program, go to https://tinyurl.com/tf9mzcfn.