The Hindu Business Line : H-1B visa filings for `07 from tomorrow

The hot debate
The proposed Bill aims to increase the number of H-1B visas to 115,000, with a clause for increasing the visa floor by 20 per cent of the base in case the cap has been exhausted in the preceding fiscal.

New Delhi , March 31

Amid the ongoing heated debate in the US Senate over contentious immigrations reforms, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will start accepting from tomorrow the petitions for H-1B professionals for granting visas for fiscal 2007.

While the current norms allow only 65,000 H-1B visas to be issued each year, the H-1B filings for the new fiscal beginning October 1 come at a time when the Senate is debating a comprehensive immigration Bill that contains issues, including border security and interior enforcement.

Earlier this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee had voted to hike the number of H-1B visas, as part of efforts to hammer out an Immigration Bill that now faces a tough round of debate in the Congress before it becomes legislation.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Bill was spearheaded by its Chairman Senator Arlen Specter and proposes to increase the number of H-1B visas issued annually to 115,000, with a clause for increasing the visa floor by 20 per cent of the base in case the cap has been exhausted in the preceding fiscal year.

For Employment Based (EB) immigrant visas, the Bill provides for an increase in the EB immigrant cap from 140,000 to 290,000 along with unused visas from the previous fiscal year, unused visas from fiscal years 2001 to 2005 and any unused visas after fiscal year 2005.

The existing H-1B shortages have been well documented as the fiscal year 2006 cap was reached six weeks prior to the start of the fiscal year.

This was the seventh time since 1997 that the cap had been reached before the end of the fiscal year and the second year in a row that it was reached on or before the start of the fiscal year.