OMG! U.S. Plans to Add Country Cap to H1B Visa for Indians – 10% to 15% of Annual Cap

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The U.S. government plans to restrict (or limit) the number of H-1B Visas issued per year to 10% to 15% of Annual Cap.

 

Looks like Indian officials were informed about this by the U.S recently (June 2019) about possibilities of adding a H1B Visa country cap for Indians as per Reuters exclusive report.

Update: The Department of State has responded to the above article that as follows on June 20, 2019.

“The Trump Administration has no plans to place caps on H-1B work visas for nations that force foreign companies to store data locally,” a State Department spokeswoman said in a statement in response to the Reuters article.

So, it’s all good for now, there will be no cap on H1B Visa.

The H1B Visa Annual Cap:

Right now, there’s no per country cap for H1B Visa issuance.

You may be aware that, Employment and Family-based Green Card has country cap limits, which causes decades of backlogs for Green card applications.

• Annual Cap for H1B Visa:
  • 65,000 for General Quote
  • 20,000 for Masters Quota

H-1B Visas are issued by random lottery selection since the number of petition far exceeds the available annual H1B Visa quota.

H1B Visa Usage per Country:

As per the latest H-1B Visa data from USCIS, nearly 62% of Initial Employment H1B visa was issued to Indians.

 

If there’s a per country cap is applied to H1B Visa for Indians, the number of H1B Visa issued for Indiana would look like this

• 2017: 16,215
• 2016: 17,175

The latest number we have from USCIS shows that over 96,000 H1B petitions were submitted under the Masters Cap.

Can you even imagine what would be the impact if a country cap were to be implemented for H1B Visa?

I’m not sure, if  Country Cap can be implemented via Rule Making or USCIS Memo or a new bill have to be passed by the Congress and signed into the law.

Future H1B Visa applicants should keep a close eye on this H1B Visa Country cap news and hope the officials from both the countries can sort this out before such a plan is implemented.

If there are any other developments, we will post an update.

Next: The Troubling Life of Long Distance H1B Visa Couples and It’s Problems >>