According to The Wall Street Journal, the allocated number of H-1B visas for the next fiscal year has already reached its limit, just a little under a week after first being made available.  The H-1B, a visa for skilled foreign workers, is imposed by a yearly cap of 65,000 visas, and an additional 20,000 visas for academic professions.  

Demand for the visas seems unaffected by the slowing economy, unlike 2001 when some visas went unused.  Congress lifted the cap to 195,000 that year to accommodate employers but over time has allowed the number to fall because of the high-tech bust and has never returned to the higher number.  This is troubling for the US ’s largest high-tech employers, who have been leaning on Congress for years to lift the caps on H-1B visas.  Robert Hoffman, vice president of Oracle Corp., presents an example typical of the dilemma most companies of this type have faced: last year the company was forced to sent its domestic jobs to Ireland and India when it couldn’t get enough H-1B visas, and that the company has 1,000 openings for skilled jobs that it is unable to fill domestically.   

USICS didn’t say how many visa applications it received, but there were enough that it will hold a lottery to determine which applications it accepts.  The visas are for workers who could take jobs beginning Oct. 1 first or later.  An employer whose application isn’t accepted can’t hire a worker until Oct. 1, 2009.  

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Last month, the US government officially announced that US and Canadian citizens coming back into the US through a land port won’t need a passport until June 1, 2009—a year later than officials planned and nearly 3 years after the requirement went into effect for air travelers.   

The Department of Homeland Security says it was on schedule to implement the rule as early as this summer but was prevented from doing so until June 2009 by language in the fiscal year 2008 appropriations bill passed by Congress, according to a DHS spokesperson.   

Currently, US and Canadian citizens coming back from Mexico via land or sea need to present either a passport or a combination of a government-approved photo ID and proof of citizenship.  People traveling to Mexico by airplane have been required to carry a passport or one of a handful of other approved secure documents since January 2007.  

The delay will allow more travelers more time to obtain the necessary documents and lessen the impact of ports of entry, said DHS officials when announcing the land and sea portion of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.  DHS officials plan to roll out an extensive outreach campaign to make people aware of the upcoming rule change, according to The Arizona Daily Star.  Customs and Border protection officials will continue meeting with travel and trade associations, educational institutions, airlines, border communities, mayors and other elected officials on both sides of the border to advise them of the new rules, said Border Patrol spokesman Brian Levin.  

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Last month, the US Supreme Court ruled that President Bush overstepped his authority when he ordered a Texas court to reopen the case of a Mexican national on death row, One News Now reports.  The national, Jose Ernest Medellin, was sentenced to death in October 1994 after providing a written confession to the rape and murder of two teenage girls in June 1993.  But when police arrested Medellin , they failed to tell him that he could request assistance from the Mexican consulate.  According to the Vienna Convention, people arrested abroad must have access to their home country’s consular officials.  

In 2003, Mexico sued the US in the International Court of Justice on behalf of Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death row in the US who had also been denied access to their country’s diplomats, saying the prisoners should therefore have new trials.  President Bush sided with Medellin and said the US would discharge its international obligation by having the Texas state court grant the death row prisoner a new hearing.  By a 6-3 vote, however, the Supreme Court ruled that the president does not have the authority to order a new hearing for the prisoner.