
USCIS Completes the H-1B Cap Random Selection Process for FY 2016 - fozzieBoston
http://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-completes-h-1b-cap-random-selection-process-fy-2016
======
JOnAgain
IMHO, fix this by replacing the 'random' with 'highest salary' (or total
comp). Just go down from the top.

\- It would alleviate (though probably not solve) the downward pressure on
salaries.

\- It would ensure that companies are well motivated to find domestic workers
since they would, theoretically, be cheaper.

\- It would ensure that H-1B's go to the people who would add the most value
to the economy (or else the company would be less competitive due to
overpaying).

\- It would favor the most talented foreigners rather than putting them in a
random lottery with new grads.

\- It would allocate the H-1B's to the companies that need them most (since
they're offering the most money)

\- It would maximize the future tax take of the US government (maximum income
=> maximum taxes paid)

Ironically, this might have prevented me from getting my own H-1B as I got it
fairly early in my career.

~~~
scythe
I think this hits a snag (as do many income-based schemes) when you consider
the effect of region. This results in lots of H1-Bs going to San Francisco,
and almost none to Atlanta, because salaries for the same position are twice
as high in San Francisco.

~~~
hbharadwaj
You could try and maybe normalize salaries based on the location I guess, but
this also hits a snag when you take into account occupation. Some occupations
generally pay lesser than others. Do they then not warrant H1Bs? Don't think
so.

~~~
deskamess
If an occupation has a lower salary, then perhaps its time for the occupation
to pay more to attract local candidates. Otherwise the H-1B is being used to
suppress wages.

------
Synroc
I'm originally from France, came to the U.S. for undergraduate studies in
2010. My first year here, I fell in love and started dating an American
student, and have been dating her ever since. Similarly, I fell in love with
the United States, and wish to spend my life here. Currently, I am currently
on OPT, applied for the H1-B process this year with my great SF company, and
now am waiting to hear back about my 28% chance of getting a visa...

I'm not trying to scam the U.S., or cheat Americans out of a job, and my
company is paying me the same amount as the americans who started at the same
time as me. Instead, I want to be an American, and be a part of this country.
Despite this, I am now at risk of being deported if I don't get the visa, and
having to leave behind my whole life here, and my girlfriend here who I intend
to spend the rest of my life with.

The worst part about this is that I am completely powerless, and at the whim
of chance.

~~~
Joky
You're not completely powerless compared to others: you can marry your
girlfriend ;)

~~~
Someone1234
OP if you read this, if you decide to get married, you REALLY need to do it
before your visa expires (by as much as possible).

If you do it after you'll technically be in the country illegally and they
will reject your marriage visa automatically (i.e. you'll have to go home to
apply for your marriage visa, they won't even accept your application while
you're still illegally in the US).

It may already be too late to do this without having to leave the country. A
marriage visa can take anywhere between six months and a year and half, unless
you can get them to rush it though (which they've done before, but normally at
foreign embassies rather than at the NVC, and without kids, a dependant, or
either of you being US military it will be hard to get an expedited process).

PS - Maybe consult an immigration attorney in your case.

PPS - If your visa is expired try not to get "caught" with it expired. Sneak
out of the country to avoid a ban, rather than getting a ban and trying to
fight it. It could save you a long fight and literally years banned from the
US.

~~~
cplease
Hey armchair lawyer, you're wrong. You can apply for adjustment of status
immediately after exchanging vows. This gives you an independent legal
immigration status while the application is adjudicated; "pending adjustment."
Unless you are already in removal, you're good to go. Even if you are already
in removal, if you haven't actually been deported, then you can make the same
application for adjustment directly to the immigration judge.

And as long as you entered the country legally (e.g. not without inspection or
fraudulently), simply having being out of status is forgiven when sponsored by
a US spouse, so long as there are no other bars to the application.

That said, going out of status is never a good idea. But as long as you apply
while you have a valid immigration status, there is no out-of-status time
period.

Anyway, OP would be advised to consult with a qualified immigration attorney
rather than HN commenters.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
> Hey armchair lawyer, you're wrong.

Here's an actual lawyer that says you're in fact wrong (they're right):

[http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/apply-
for...](http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/apply-for-green-
card-on-expired-visa.html)

Key quote:

> If you are in the United States with an expired visa, then you most likely
> are not eligible to apply for adjustment of status.

But the whole article, start to end, almost mirrors the above comment and
contradicts most of what you said. Key question: Are you a lawyer? You implied
you are but are giving legal advice which contradicts a proven law firm
specialising in immigration law. You also criticised someone else for being an
"armchair lawyer" (implying you're not).

> You can apply for adjustment of status immediately after exchanging vows.

"Applying" sounds great, but you are in no way granted anything while the
process is on-going. In fact they very specifically recommend you avoid
travelling to the US while your visa in processes, as that could result in a
"misunderstanding" and them junking your visa because they believe you're
living in the US already.

That's the advice I was given in person by someone at the US embassy in
London. She said "make sure if you travel you, you have a return ticket, and
don't take too much luggage or it could cause your application to be
rejected."

> simply having being out of status is forgiven when sponsored by a US spouse,
> so long as there are no other bars to the application

Even though they tell you many MANY times when applying that applying from
within the US without legal status will automatically get you rejected? This
is the NVS and the US embassy. Where are you getting your information? Can you
cite a source which proves that they forgive fiancee visa applicants for visa
violations?

> That said, going out of status is never a good idea.

Why? They forgive it according to you. Kind of contradicts what you said
before...

> But as long as you apply while you have a valid immigration status, there is
> no out-of-status time period.

Unless you apply for an extension on your OLD visa, you almost certainly will
be out-of-status given how long fiancee visas take under normal circumstances.

> Anyway, OP would be advised to consult with a qualified immigration attorney
> rather than HN commenters.

I agree. Your comment here is full of misinformation and dangerous
misinformation at that. At least the above comment is suggesting they follow
the documented visa process (leaving, apply, then re-enter when it is
accepted). You're proposing they ignore visa law because of some "magical"
clemency you claim that fiancee visa applicants are granted.

Your advice is just dangerously terrible and wrong.

~~~
presty
actually cplease is RIGHT and you are wrong

from your own link, here's the part that cplease is referring to (SPOUSES)

> Despite the general rule that people whose authorized stays have expired
> cannot use the adjustment of status procedure to get their green card, the
> following types of people may be able to stay in the United States and
> adjust status:

> Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, namely their spouses, parents, and
> unmarried minor children (under age 21). Immediate relatives may adjust
> status even with an expired visa – but not if they entered the United States
> illegally, without a visa or other authorized form of entry.

once Synroc marries, he becomes a spouse and _should_ become eligible for
adjustment of status

------
gusmd
I'm one of those 233k this year. Was an intern with a J1 a couple years ago,
came back to my country to finish grad school, and my former employer wants to
hire me back.

From what I've been researching, there are several of these so-called
"consultancies" that hire mostly Indian guys (please don't take it personally,
no offence intended), fake their resumes, and give them shitty life conditions
in the US. Lots of people also pay for these consultancies to apply for them
with fake jobs as to increase their chances in the lottery.

Its a shame that us with real, good-paying jobs have to go through that. I'm
being hired because they cannot find someone in the US to fill this spot and
because they already know me and think I'm a good fit for the company.

------
nabucodonosor
The worse part is that there are a lot of applicants filing multiple
applications. They pay some agencies just to file H1B applications for them.
This itself is against H1B application policy. There is an ongoing petition
trying to get government's attentions:
[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/remove-and-ban-
ch...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/remove-and-ban-cheaters-who-
sent-multi-petition-h1b-lottery-selection)

~~~
cplease
Multiple petitions with multiple legitimate sponsors is not actually
disallowed. That being said, there are few situations where a legitimate
sponsor would be on-board with an applicant simultaneously filing another
petition. I'm not sure if an applicant is legally (as opposed to morally)
required to disclose this to sponsors. It is certainly abused all the time.

~~~
klipt
It's a tragedy of the commons. In order to have a chance against 233k other
petitions, if people can get multiple petitions filed on their behalf, they
would be stupid not to. Which then inflates the overall number even further.

The people it really hurts are highly qualified individuals sponsored by a
single well known tech company ... like I was two years ago. Luckily I got my
H1-B then and am now well on the way to a green card.

------
manca
I was going through this painful process two years in a row. Last year there
were around 170k petitions filled. A year before that, around 125k.

We did not win the lottery both times, and opted for L1B instead this year. It
is available only to the companies who have international offices in order to
bring people from abroad to the US. Still waiting on this...

I'll probably write a blog post about the whole experience, once everything is
over. Stay tuned.

P.S One thing is certain - US immigration desperately needs fix.

------
gokhan
So, let's say Google wants to move you to US and wants to pay you $200.000+
because you're a unique scientist that filling a position that can't be filled
by a US citizen. After spending time and money for the interview process, they
apply for H-1B on behalf of you. Than there goes the lottery, than no luck,
than what?

168.000 is pretty decent number to turn down after your own companies spend
all those resources just for the selection of those applicants.

~~~
HarryHirsch
For Nobel Prize winners and champion soccer players there's O-class visa. H1-B
is for the plebs.

~~~
rogeroga
actually, Miguel de Icaza, from Gnome and Mono fame, got an O visa, I wonder
what was the initial Visa that Linus Torvalds got, but he could well apply for
that O, with no objection from me.

------
untitledwiz
Does anyone know or have an estimate on how many of the 233,000 total are
filed under the Master's cap?

~~~
flgr
If we can extrapolate from the numbers at [1] (not sure how representative it
is) then about 29% of the 233,000 total petitions would be filed under the
Master's cap. That'd be around 67,337 Master's cap petitions.

[1] [http://redbus2us.com/trackers/h1b-visa-
tracker/](http://redbus2us.com/trackers/h1b-visa-tracker/)

------
pshin45
If any of you are in the SF Bay Area, I'm organizing a hackathon[1] on May
29~31 in SF focused exclusively on immigration. Shoot me an email at my HN
username at gmail dot com and I'd be happy to give you a generous discount
code.

[1] [http://www.up.co/communities/usa/san-francisco/startup-
weeke...](http://www.up.co/communities/usa/san-francisco/startup-weekend/5961)

------
luisdaniel12
Why this is important:

Because if a tech company wants to hire a foreigner, the visa process
(regardless of skill^1) is basically worse than a coin toss. Which means
companies have a much more limited pool of applicants. And let's be real, this
country doesn't have nearly enough STEM professionals to meet demand.

1)Exceptions: Master's degree (another lottery), extraordinary ability (pretty
tough).

~~~
qdpb
> let's be real, this country doesn't have nearly enough STEM professionals to
> meet demand

... at current salaries.

~~~
trhway
what in your opinion the current salaries are and what they must be in order
to attract enough professionals? I mean do you see a lot of people who aren't
STEM professionals because they feel the salaries are too low? If they aren't
STEM professionals than where they are?

~~~
x0x0
I see a continued loss of excellent, experienced -- 10-15 years into their
careers -- engineers from sf to Seattle, Chicago, Colorado, Boston, and Austin
driven by an admixture of the poor wages in sf/peninsula compared to housing
costs, poor transport plus long commute times, very high education costs for
children, high daycare costs, and family unfriendly work policies. Three
friends and at least nine acquaintances over the last 24 months.

Compare the housing prices of what a three bedroom condo in sf (what a 2 child
family wants) vs the other cities, plus the ability for mothers to take a
couple years off work. Losing 15 to 20% of your salary to save 50% or more of
housing costs is often a great deal.

~~~
klipt
The Bay Area is fundamentally broken in that cities refuse to build new
housing and schools. Supply is limited, demand exceeds supply, and engineers
are competing against each other for that very limited supply.

So if all us engineers' salaries went up, it wouldn't help. We'd just end up
spending even more to out compete each other. (Well, I guess it would help
push non-engineers out of the Bay Area, but is that really what we want?)

~~~
qdpb
If there is nowhere to house new engineers, why do companies apply for H1-B?

~~~
klipt
That's mostly orthogonal to the H1-B question - why do they hire anyone? (Most
of the hires are not H1-Bs.)

I'd guess the answer is, marginally, hiring people is still good for
companies. But combined with the lack of housing development, it's slowly but
steadily making life worse for everyone in the Bay Area who doesn't yet own a
house.

If it continues this way, eventually people won't move here without
ridiculously high salary offers, and companies will be forced to expand in
cheaper cities instead.

------
jedisct1
I had to resign from my job in San Francisco in order to go back to France for
a couple months due to family issues.

My H1B was revoked by my employer in January. My I-94 is valid until September
24, 2015.

What are my options to go back and work in the US now? Is there anything
besides filling a new petition in 2016?

Or is transferring the previous H1B still an option?

~~~
taurussai
You don't have to go through the lottery again if you have already gone
through the cap selection process once

------
borrowedhour
When do they reach out to people if their application has been selected in the
lottery or not?

~~~
hazelnut
It can take months. Got my approval in August.

~~~
borrowedhour
Is approval notice the same as getting picked up in lottery? I think you can
get picked up in a lottery but approval is not guaranteed.

------
sjg007
Now it makes sense why there are so many foreign Masters students.

------
rurban
They still need more than 6 months to answer the H1-B extension request, with
the consequence that those candidates either cannot travel anymore or have to
leave permanently.

------
CodeSheikh
In simple words, US Immigration system is quite messed up.

~~~
dsl
Rather it is companies gaming the system to get below market labor, and it has
a huge negative impact on the entire market.

------
dudus
Do L-1 visas have caps? Why not hire oversees for a year and bring them in
after that as a L-1 visa holder?

~~~
manca
Almost 50% of all L1 petitions get RFE (Request for evidence). It's becoming
harder to use this visa to bring people to the US these days, too. It's
especially difficult for big outsourcing companies (proving and supplying
enough evidence for the "specialized knowledge" (L1B) category is really non
trivial for the companies and often not clearly understood by the USCIS
officers, hence the RFE).

However, USCIS has recently released a new L1B adjudications policy for public
feedback ([http://www.uscis.gov/news/uscis-posts-
updated-l-1b-adjudicat...](http://www.uscis.gov/news/uscis-posts-
updated-l-1b-adjudications-policy-public-feedback)) where they clearly define
the "specialized knowledge" category. Maybe this will help companies to
properly understand what's needed to demonstrate the specialized knowledge in
the future, but I really doubt it.

------
abeiz
How does this affect TN visas (if at all)?

------
coppolaemilio
Can someone translate to human language?

~~~
hibikir
In the good old days, it wasn't so easy to hire a foreigner that studied
computer science in an American university: They'd get an automatic 1 year
practical training visa, and if after a few months you saw that they were a
good hire, you'd sponsor them for an H1-B, and eventually a green card. That's
how many senior people that were born overseas got to their spots.

Now, thanks to low quotas, and some rather unsavory consultancy companies, the
H1-B program has now become useless for this purpose, as you have less than a
50/50 chance of getting an H1-B approved, just due to quotas. So while an
honest company that wants to hire a good developer will not be OK with the
delays and the low percentages of hiring someone in those conditions, a mill
that interviews thousands of people and will place them in third party
customers as consultants will gladly just keep flooding the market with
applicants that probably will not get anywhere.

TL;DR The H1-B program used to be defensible, and maybe useful. The way it
works now, it only works for companies who abuse it.

~~~
ta82828

       it wasn't so easy
    

I think you meant "it wasn't so hard"

------
Alleluja
This is the process I went throught back in 2005 to get a job in IT after
graduating in Business in Poland: 1\. Got a position with an Indian company
that promised a job after paid training ($5k) 2\. After 3-month long training
they totally and completely faked my resume. I.e. included 5-years experience,
fake credentials, fake references. 3\. Got me a job with large, large bank.
4\. Got half my salary for 6-months. 5\. After that I was on my own as I
couldnt stand lies anymore.

From my experience 90% + people from H-1B is on these terms in the US. We had
trainees on our "camp" that _literally_ haven't seen PC keybaord before.
Ending up as IBM tools specialists in Fannie Mea, Freddie Mac, Capital One.

This much about H-1B. And this much about interview process int the US too.
And actually about dumb Americans who can't get a job in that country too.

~~~
CodeSheikh
I see your point here, and it is valid -- to some extent.

Yes, the "Indian" consultancies have been exploiting this system for ages and
US Govt has been trying its best for past three years to not grant visas if
USCIS can not establish Employer-Employee relationship. But still these
consultancies always find loop holes.

I have come to this country as an immigrant as well. I went to an average
university first in midwest and then transferred to a top 10 engineering
school. I have seen "Americans" who can not do basic algebra in Calculus 1
classes. And I have studied/work with "Americans" who are at the top of their
game. It is really subjective. Unfortunately, American media is exporting
"Booty Culture" (think Kim K.) to the world rather than preaching about their
rockstar scientists and engineers.

------
abhididdigi
OK and why is this the top of HN? Because of the number of applications?

The number of applications is slightly higher than last year, but still I fail
to understand why it is on the top, because this same thing was happening for
the last 4+ years.

My application was picked up in the year 2013, so I have been following both
HN and the USCIS at that time. Never saw it make top of HN.

~~~
CodeSheikh
Because HN caters to tech audience and majority of the H1-B petitioners are
tech workers. Get it?

~~~
abhididdigi
I myself am an immigrant. I seriously don't see any need, because all the new
immigrants will keep their eyes and ears open to see if their application is
selected. All citizens/ existing immigrants, don't really care.

~~~
asavadatti
Speak for yourself. There are plenty of us who care.

~~~
abhididdigi
It is ironical, in asking me to speak for myself you are using the "royal" us.

