Demand for H1B visas outstrips supply

This year, the US government had to run a computer-generated random selection process or a lottery for H1B visas since applications far exceeded the number of visas available. This situation is also making Indian students at American colleges nervous since they face an uncertain future. But a group of American lawyers is making an attempt to convince the US Congress to raise the quota.

Thousands of applicants for H1B visas will be disappointed this year, if they do not get their work permit after a lottery. The lottery was announced after the annual quota was exceeded on the first day of filing for the visas. But now the American Immigration Lawyer's Association is starting to lobby hard with lawmakers to overcome this problem.

Immigration lawyer, Cyrus Mehta told CNBC-TV18, "All the members, the attorney members of this organization, have been asked to contact their corporate clients and then get them to sign on to a letter and we hope to get 1000 signatures from H1B companies or companies using the H1B, to petition Congress people, Senators and members of the House, to increase the H1B quota and even increase the EB quota - the employment-based quota."

The situation has caused great anxiety for Indian students studying in America because after spending large amounts on higher education here, they face the prospect of being jobless once they graduate.

Siddharth Mehra is a student at the Babson College in Boston and he says, "Each student who is coming to study here is spending about $200,000 over the course of a two-year programme and the best way to recover that is to work here and earn that back. If you get an opportunity to work for a company for three years, you can do it but companies won't take you because you have the H1B visa issue. It's a risk for them to take you in case you don't get sponsored, the quota gets over. Then you have to go back home."

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced there are 2000 H1Bs still available for those holding Master's or other advanced degrees from American universities. But given the thousands of international students who graduate each year, even that will not suffice.

American universities are wooing Indian students. But those students may well wonder whether they'll get a return on their investment in an American education, given the H1B quota logjam.

Anirudh Bhattacharyya