Congress approves ‘high-tech visa’

Visa limits for U.S. universities hiring foreign nationals to end

By Susan Williams

President Clinton is expected to sign legislation that will give universities unlimited access to H-1B visas for researchers and educators.

The H-1B visa, a non-immigrant classification popularly called “the high-tech visa” by the media, is used for university professional employees, including all tenure-track appointments and many researchers.

“This action corrects a lot of requirements and procedures that had created problems for U.S. universities,” said Ken Rogers, associate dean of the Indiana University Office of International Services in Bloomington. “From our perspective, the new law remo ves most of the major obstacles to the employment of foreign nationals in tenure-track or other key positions on university campuses. It also eliminates a considerable amount of the difficulty in obtaining H-1 visa status that has heretofore been involved for international students wishing to pursue professional opportunities in the U.S. after graduation.

“But the biggest benefit is that universities no longer have to compete against high-tech companies, which bring great numbers of H-1B workers to the U.S., for a limited number of visas; there is now no limit to the number of H-1B visas available to unive rsities.”

In addition to the academic exemption from the numerical cap on H-1Bs, the bill raises the cap to 195,000 per year for fiscal years 2001-03, a provision for which the high-tech industry has fought hard. But, unlike the overall provision, the academic exem ption is not limited to those years; it would remain in effect until changed by new legislation.

Last year, according to Rogers, the H cap was exhausted by March, when universities were just beginning the hiring process for the coming year and remained unavailable until Oct. 1. This year, all H-1Bs would likely have been used by January.

“We would be left trying to improvise in various ways to bring foreign scholars to campus,” said Rogers. “If unsuccessful, we would have to wait until October for the new fiscal year when another allotment of H-1B visas became available. Of course, by the n, over a month of the new school year is past.”

The H-1B bill also includes new funding to support U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) benefits and services. The bill allows 4 percent of the money raised through the existing H-1B training fee to be used to fund the processing of H-1B appl ications. It also allows Congress, for the first time, to appropriate money to fund a new INS capital account specifically to support the efforts to clear all backlogs and establish regular 90-day processing times.

“The benefits to universities of this legislation cannot be over-emphasized,” said Rogers. “The U.S. gains from the research done by foreign academic researchers, and students benefit by learning from them.”

For additional information on the new legislation, contact the IU Office of International Services at 812-855-9086.

A full summary of legislative changes is available at the office’s Web site:

http://www.indiana.edu/~intlserv/