H-1B Visa Lottery Will Now Favor Masters, Doctorate Degree Holders (sfchronicle.com)

McGruber shares a report from The San Francisco Chronicle: The Department of Homeland Security announced a rule change Wednesday that will transform the lottery that decides who gets the 85,000 H-1B visas granted to for-profit companies every year. Previously, an initial lottery granted 20,000 visas only to those holding advanced degrees granted by U.S. institutions -- master's degrees or doctorates -- and then a general lottery granted 65,000 visas to all qualified applicants. The Department of Homeland Security switched the order of these lotteries, it said in a notice of the final rule change, which will bolster the odds for highly educated foreign nationals. The change reduces the likelihood that people with just a bachelor's degree will win in the general lottery, said Lisa Spiegel, an attorney at Duane Morris in San Francisco and head of the firm's immigration group. The program shift could hurt technology staffing companies, also known as outsourcers, who have a reputation for flooding the lottery with applications. Three Indian firms -- Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro -- often account for a majority of the H-1B applications, an analysis of government data shows.

Comments

Re:masters, even doctorate, means nothing

[rtb61]

The US is kind of stuck, the ability to recruit better is pretty rapidly falling off. I mean who really wants to be shot an random by some trigger happy junk yard dog law enforcer. How about being a frenemy like the Russia girl, from liberal friend of the USA to Russian whore overnight because it suited some freak fuck wits strategy. Then there is growing hate and racism. A heavily polluted environment and getting worse by the day. Growing violent crime. Not to forget fired at a moments notice for what ever whim. Harassed by secret services for potentially being a spy. Don't want to be placed in a low lying underwaterfront locale but that is a global problem but financially, only tropical Island will fair worse that mainland USA and they always blame the immigrants.

Smart money is on office relocation to places where high end employees want to go and not where really good marketing and public relations used and I mean past tense, to convince they wanted to go. US companies want the best from around the world and not just the greediest because they will back stab you, the best most productive people, you are going to have to relocate to places where you can recruit them more easily and far more cheaply, better quality of life, lower salary and you want to avoid the greediest at all cost, because they will cost you a lot more than you bargained for in the end.