Indians corner 38 per cent of H1-B visas in 2008: US

Lalit K Jha

Washington, Apr 13 (PTI) Indians topped the list of
the most sought-after H-1B work visas for highly skilled
categories in the US last year, accounting for a whopping 37.8
per cent of the 409,619 admissions, an official report said.

Indians also accounted for maximum number of people
entering the US on L-1 visa, which is primarily used for
intra-company transferees, said the Annual Flow Report
released by the Office of Immigration Statistics.

The report said Indian nationals accounted for 157,726
(37.8 per cent) of the 409,619 H-1B Admissions in the US in
2008. In actual figures, this is a drop of about 3,000 as
compared to 2007 when 157,613 Indian citizens were admitted to
the US on H-1B visas. In 2006 the figure was 125,717.

The annual report reveals that Canada is a distant
second in terms of H-1B visa admissions. In 2008 as many as
23,312 Canadian nationals were admitted to the US on this visa
category, followed by Britain (19,209), Mexico (16,382) and
China (13,828).

"The leading countries of citizenship for H1-B
admissions in 2008 were India (38 per cent), Canada (5.7 per
cent), and the UK (4.7 per cent). Nationals from these three
countries accounted for 48 per cent of H1-B admissions," the
report said.

As for the L-1 visas, the report said, in 2008 leading
source countries in this category were India (17 per cent),
Britain (14 per cent), and Japan (9.8 per cent). The nationals
of these three countries accounted for 40 per cent of L1
admissions, it said.

Of the total of 382,776 L-1 Admissions in 2008, as
many as 63,156 were from India. This is almost twice the
33,414 admissions in 2006.

This is for the first time that India has topped in
the L-1B visa category, which so far was occupied by Britain
for the past few years.

With H-1B visas becoming tough in the last few years,
Indian companies had increasingly relied on L-1 visa category
for sending highly skilled workers to the US.

The Annual Flow Report comes at a time when the US is
having a tough time in filling up its annual quota of 65,000
H-1B work visas for the fiscal 2010, clearly indicating the
impact of the current financial turmoil in the US.

Despite opening the H-1B programme for applicants a
week ago on April 1, the US Citizenship and Immigration
Services has only got 42,000 applications, whereas last year,
the quota was filled in less than two days. PTI