H1B visa lottery likely to end; entry to be merit-based

This year the H1B visa lottery system will end and a new system will take its place with an emphasis on higher skills and masters degrees, a White House official announced in a press briefing this week.
 
The US government plans to switch from a random lottery system, which weighed in favour of lowest wage workers, towards a system of highly skilled and highly paid workers that would make it difficult to replace American workers.

Every year, a fresh cap of H1B visa applications is being opened by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The USCIS selects the applications on a random basis and this system is called the H1B visa lottery.
 
With expectations of H1B visa becoming more restrictive, applications for H1B visas received by the USCIS have dropped from 2,36,000 to 1,99,000.
 
“Top recipients of the H-1B visa are companies like Tata, Infosys, Cognizant -- they will apply for a very large number of visas, more than they get, by putting extra tickets in the lottery raffle, if you will, and then they’ll get the lion’s share of visas,” said the official.
 
The USCIS is also likely to give more prominence to master’s degree holders who have an allocation of just about 20,000 slots, in addition to the 65,000 annual H1B visa quota.

The amendment of the H1B visa regime is likely to create more job opportunities in  India, eastern Europe and the Philippines.