H-1B Petitions Drop Precipitously

H-1B petition filings have dropped by 50 percent over the same time last year, and by 80 percent since 2009, according to reports. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently reported that it only received approximately 8,000 H-1B petitions in April, compared with 16,500 in April 2010 and 45,000 in April 2009. In 2008, by contrast, the entire 65,000 allotment was gone by the end of the first day.

Speculation about the causes ranges from the continued sluggishness of the U.S. economy to skilled workers seeking work in their home countries and increases in visa fees. Some potential H-1B workers have noted that the cost of living is significantly lower in their home countries and they can be close to family and parents, who often cannot be brought to the U.S. because of difficulties in obtaining visas for them. Critics of the program in Congress and elsewhere have also contributed to an overall negative climate for hiring H-1Bs.

On March 31, 2011, the day before USCIS began accepting new petitions, the House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement held a hearing on the H-1B program. At the hearing, Bo Cooper, head of the Washington, DC, office of Berry Appleman & Leiden, noted a “surprising level of rancor” surrounding the high-skilled immigration debate in recent years. He said this traces mainly to a fundamental misconception that the job supply in the U.S. is a “zero-sum game,” such that a job occupied by a foreign professional is a job lost to a U.S. worker. “This is a misconception that has got to be shed if we are to push forward a high-skilled immigration policy that equips the United States to remain the world’s innovation leader, and to regain its maximum economic strength, and to restore job growth and prosperity for the U.S. worker.” He noted that “the more brain power we can attract from around the world, the more creativity, invention, and growth we can achieve here at home.”