IEEE-USA Seeks H-1B Visa Cap of 65,000

Citing record unemployment among U.S. engineers and computer scientists, the IEEE-USA, a national chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), called on Congress to allow the yearly H-1B visa cap to return to 65,000. Currently, the yearly visa cap for hiring foreign high-tech workers is 195,000. This figure will revert to 65,000 on 30 September, if Congress takes no action to extend the cap. The Immigration and Naturalization Service claims to have processed 294,100 H-1B petitions during fiscal year 2002 in new, renewed and exempt categories. Because an H-1B petition can authorize admission by more than one person, the actual number of high-tech workers admitted may be substantially higher. The Department of Labor estimates that 120,000 high-tech professionals (electronics engineers and computer scientists) were unemployed in the United States as of Q4 2002.
http://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/issues/H1bvisa/index.html