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NEW, MORE BUSINESS FRIENDLY H-1B BILL INTRODUCED IN HOUSE, BUT CAP MAY BE REACHED NEXT WEEK
The American Immigration Lawyers Association has learned from the INS General Counsel that a notice announcing that no more H-1B visas are available for fiscal year 2000 will appear in the Tuesday, March 21, 2000, issue of the Federal Register.  At that time the INS will also explain how it will deal with cases that are in the pipeline.  The INS has also informed AILA that while it will not count any visas that may have been improperly issued during 1999 to the 2000 cap, it reserves the right to deduct them in future years.  
This is the earliest yet that the cap has been reached.  Last year the cap was not hit until May, and just a few years ago the H-1B cap was not an issue.  This is a clear indication that new H-1B legislation is desperately needed, and will hopefully demonstrate to Congress how important quick passage of this legislation is. 
The Clinton administration has come out in favor of a “reasonable increase” in the number of visas issued annually, but tied its support to increased training for US workers to enable them to work in high-tech fields.  The Administration has not yet said whether it considers the increase proposed in Senator Hatch’s (R-UT) bill, to 195,000, “reasonable.”  An Administration spokesman did, however, say that Clinton supported the amendments proposed by Senator Kennedy (D-MA), which would have raised the cap to only 145,000 and would have increased the fees to provide training programs.  This amendment was defeated. 
An H-1B bill has been introduced in the House that is much more favorable to business interests.  Introduced by Rep. David Dreier (R-CA), the bill has wide bipartisan support and should challenge the H-1B bill introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith.  A brief summary of the provisions of the bill follows: 
·     Would allow backlogged countries to use employment based visas from countries   with less demand 
·     Would allow H-1B workers to keep H-1B status while permanent resident petitions are processed 
·     Allows recruitment through the internet 
·     Increases the H-1B cap to 200,000 for fiscal years 2001, 2002 and 2003 
·     Reserves 70,000 visas for those with at least a Masters Degree 
·     Reserves 10,000 visas for use by institutions of higher education 
·     Increases the employer fee to 00
·     Uses the additional fees to fund programs for student loan forgiveness for those who teach math and science in low income areas, for math and science education of first generation school children, for providing scholarships to students studying math, engineering, and computer science