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The slowdown in US economy has resulted in a sharp decline in the number of temporary H-1B work visas issued to foreign workers, including Indians, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The INS issued about 60,500 H-1B visas from October 2001 to June 2002, posting a 54 per cent decline from 130,700 visas issued during the same period in the previous fiscal year, the latest data released by the INS shows.
The government issues H-1B work visas, which are good for six years, under a special programme intended to help companies out with extra workers when there are not enough qualified US workers to fill the jobs. About half of all H-1B workers are employed by the computer industry, which uses the visas to import computer engineers, many from India and China.
In 2000, the US Congress temporarily raised the cap for H-1B visas to 195,000 for 2001-2003. However, the continued use of the H-1B visa programme during one of the tech industry's most severe downturns, when thousands of people have lost their jobs, has heightened criticism of the programme.
Post-Sept 11 scrutiny of visas and the reorganisation of the INS have also likely played a role in the drop, an immigration attorney told the San Jose Mercury News.
"Right now immigration is sort of in a mess," Margaret Wong, a longtime immigration attorney in Cleveland, told the paper. Wong said wait times for H-1B visas have increased from a month to 16 weeks.
PTI
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