Proprietary and Confidential 1

Immigration Reform ActImmigration Reform Act of 2013

The new Bill includes a number of aspects that intend to improve the H-1B visa program. The changes are much needed as the H-1B visa quota allocation runs out quickly each year due to demand grossly outweighing the supply of available visas.

 The revised bill raises the annual H-1B cap from 65,000 to 115,000. The annual escalator increases from 10,000 to 20,000 if occupational unemployment for the professional, management and related occupations is below 4.5% (which has been below 4% in recent years).

  This would make a total of 155,000 H1B visas available per fiscal year.Employer and employee implications Most employers are not required to offer a job to a qualified U.S. worker before hiring foreign workers, only "dependent firms” will be obligated to do so. Dependent firms are those with 15% or more of the workforce on visas.

 A new "intending immigrant" provision would exclude the number of foreign employees who have started the green card process from counting to the total number of visa required employees for the determination of "dependent firms".

 This provision will certainly encourage employers to file large number of employment based green card petitions for their employees to avoid the title and added hassles and costs of being "dependent firms".

Proprietary and Confidential 2

H-1B visa trends

Source: Staffing Industry Analyst, Cnet, Mercury News – April, 2014

Feds use lottery on H-1Bs – caps reached

• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently announced the number of visas requested exceeded the annual caps in the first week. The agency will now hold a lottery to determine who will get the visas.

• “Reaching the cap is not surprising given the demand companies are having for the unique skill sets that talent from abroad possesses,” said Bryan Peña, vice president, at Staffing Industry Analysts. “This is good news for the industry as a whole as it highlights the growing demand for skilled labor and highlights an opportunity for staffing firms to fill the void with domestic talent as needed if H-1B holders aren’t available.

• As Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants lobby the government for more high-skilled worker visas, immigration officials say they’ve received too many applications for this coming year.

• In a rare bipartisan effort, the US Senate approved an immigration bill last June that calls for increasing H-1B visas. However, the bill has since been stalled in the House. Many members of the Republican-led House have said they oppose the Senate bill because it is too lax on border security and too generous to illegal immigrants.