H-1B Exemption Cap For Fiscal Year 2007 Reached!
The following is from a Rob Sanchez Newsletter: "In November of 2004 the omnibus spending bill passed, and with it an amendment dubbed the "L-1 Visa and H-1B Visa Reform Act of 2004". The "reform" part of H-1B raised the number of visas that could be issued. International students who earn a Masters or PhD in the U.S. are noweligible to use an H-1B visa that is exempted from the cap. Exemptions of this type have been estimated to be approximately 20,000 per year so effectively the yearly cap was raised from 65,000 to 85,000. The USCIS recently sent out a press release that all of the 20,000 exemptions were gobbled up for fiscal year 2007. The official count of 85,000 H-1Bs doesn't tell the entire story though because additional exemptions will be issued if the alien will be employed at an institution of higher education or a related or affiliated non-profit entity, or at a non-profit research organization or a governmental research organization (like Los Alamos or Lawrence Livermore labs for example). No of
