On Campus
To be or not to
H-1B?
Fierce Debate Over Work Visas
by Aigerim Tulepbergenova, University of Oregon
E
very year, more than 600,000 in- American businesses to take advantage ternational students graduate from of these skills by limiting the number U.S. colleges. On that special grad- of work visas available for highly skilled uation day, each student celebrates the workers. success of his or her college career. They Work visas available for highly are excited and happy; the whole world skilled labor in the United States are is in their hands. These students would known as H-1B visas. The H-1B visa alseemingly not have a problem landing lows US employers to hire and recruit inthe perfect job: they are multilingual, ternational professionals to work in the have an excellent work ethic, and bring USA for a specified time period. H-1Bdiversity to the workforce. Although Visa-qualifying occupations include jobs these new international graduates might that are related to professional fields such wish to work in the United States instead as IT, computing, finance, accounting, of returning home and there are compa- banking, marketing, advertising, enginies that desire their valuable skills, im- neering, healthcare and other related migration policies in the United States fields. In order to obtain a H-1B Visa, an have made it increasingly difficult for applicant must find a US company that
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will offer him or her a job and sponsor his or her H-1B visa application and present a college diploma, a current resume, or curriculum vitae with a detailed employment history, a passport, or any other documents that can serve as a proof of a specific job offer. The primary difficulty in obtaining a H-1B visa comes not from the application process itself, but rather the yearly limit on the number of visas issued. Beginning in 1990, Congress passed a law establishing a limit on the number of H-1B visas issued each year. When the quota was first established, it was rarely reached and thus had little impact. By the mid 1990’s, however, the quota began to fill up by