Chamber Urges Congress to Act on Visa Restrictions

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Chamber of Commerce called on Congress to address the unavailability of H-1B visas for the rest of the fiscal year and enact an exemption for foreign students receiving advanced degrees from U.S. universities.

"Congressional limits on H-1B visas are set without regard to the economic or competitiveness needs of our country," said Chamber Vice President for Labor, Immigration and Employee Benefits Randel Johnson. "While artificial caps are always troublesome, they should not stand in the way of the ability of U.S. employers to hire foreign nationals with graduate degrees from American universities."

With Fiscal Year 2005 only days old, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has already received enough petitions to account for all 65,000 H-1B visas allocated for the year. While companies may continue to extend visas for persons already here, new hires, many graduating from U.S. schools and universities, will not be able to work for U.S. companies.

America's ability to remain the world leader in innovation depends on its ability to attract foreign nationals graduating from advanced degree programs from U.S. universities, according to a number of recent studies.

"The ability to obtain visas for highly educated foreign nationals is crucial to U.S. competitiveness and helps keep jobs in America," said Johnson. "It is unthinkable that Congress would hamstring employers from having access to these needed workers for an entire year."

This is the seventh time since 1997 that the H-1B cap has been reached before the end of the fiscal year, although the instantaneous achievement of the cap with the start of the new year is an unwelcome record.

"Obviously, this should tell members of Congress that an adjustment must be made," said Johnson. "Congress should revisit the cap before the end of session to ensure American business has access to the talent it needs to help keep our economy strong."

The U.S. Chamber is the world's largest business federation representing more than three million businesses and organizations of every size, sector and region.

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