The H-1B visas ran out because the demand for these visas was much higher than the supply. The US Congress specifies the number of visas that will be issued in each visa category. Congress provided only 65,000 H-1B visas for the 2008 fiscal year (which starts on October 1, 2008 and runs through September 30, 2009). The first date that a company could file for these visas was six months in advance, or April 1, 2008. The U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service announced that it received about 150,000 H-1B petitions during the first day (which was April 2 because April 1 was a Sunday). The USCIS rejected any petition received on April 4 or after.
The USCIS announced that it would use a computer-generated random-selection process to select which of the petitions received would receive a visa out of all of the petitions filed. All petitions that were not randomly selected by the USCIS were returned to the applicants. These applicants could be resubmitted on April 1, 2008, when another lot of H-1B visas become available for fiscal 2009.
The only solution for this lack of H-1B visas is to request that Congress issue more of these visas. I encourage employers and others to call or write your Senators and Congresspeople to ask for more visas to be available.
At one time there were no quotas on H-1B visas and qualified educated persons could obtain an H-1B visa whenever an employer needed their services. Then,back in the 1990's due to pressure by immigration restrictionists, a quota of 65,000 H-1B's per year was enacted. That was fine for a while and the quota was never fully subscribed. Then came the "dot com" era, when technology jobs outstripped the number of available people and the quota quickly became oversubsribed. Congress acted and upped the quota. Then, due to pressure by anti-immigration and immigration restrictionist groups, the quota was reduced back down to 65,000, where it is today. Congress has been impotent in the passage of any meaningful immigration reform and the legislation proposed over the past few years has been so bad that nothing passed. America needs H-1B workers and it needs temporary workers to fill other jobs. Write your congressman and senators to push to true immigration reform that will benefit America.
