U.S. cuts off H-1B visa applications

The U.S. immigration agency stopped taking H-1B visa applications for highly skilled foreign workers after just one week and will hold a lottery to award them, the government said Tuesday.

Congress limits the annual number of H-1B visas to 65,000. The cap has been criticized by Microsoft Corp. and other computer, technology and engineering companies that say they must hire foreign workers because the United States is not producing enough home-grown job candidates.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said the lottery would include H-1B visa applications received through Monday, just one week after the application window opened for fiscal 2009. The fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

“Due to the high number of petitions, USCIS is not yet able to announce the precise day on which it will conduct the random selection process,” the agency said in a statement.

An agency spokesman said he did not know how many H-1B applications had been submitted.

The agency held a lottery last year after being overwhelmed with about 120,000 visa requests on the first day the application period began. For the last five years, the H-1B visa cap was exceeded before the new fiscal year began.

An H-1B visa allows a U.S. company to employ a foreign worker with a university degree in a highly specialized job for three years. The visa can be extended for another three years.

The immigration agency said it would first hold a computer lottery for a separate category of 20,000 H-1B visas allotted to applicants holding advanced university degrees.

Applicants from that group who are not chosen will be included in a second computer lottery for the broader group of H-1B applicants competing for 65,000 visas, the agency said.