Recession Cuts Into H-1B Visa Work

by Rene Ciria-Cruz

Immigration lawyers who help employers obtain H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers have been hit hard by the recession. In 2008 their clients snapped up within two days all 65,000 of the skilled-worker visa openings cleared by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). But this year nearly 20,000 H-1B visa slots remained unclaimed four months after the national lottery for those visas opened in April.

"There are some requests [by employers] for teachers and environmental and medical professionals, but overall the recession has cut the demand for skilled-worker visas," says Randall Caudle, an immigration attorney and past president of the Santa Clara chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). "Many immigration lawyers have shifted from business-visa caseloads to employer-compliance work?in investigations by the USCIS?and even removal defense for workers whose visas have lapsed."

In San Francisco, Lourdes Tancinco reminisces about how last year she had to rush to get enough H-1B visas for clients. This year, she says, "There are no takers?it's the bad economy. Very few U.S. employers are hiring, and many high-skilled workers have been laid off."

Immigration lawyers are doing their best to adapt to the slump. With far fewer employment-visa applications to file, Tancinco has had to concentrate on getting other work, such as family-based visa petitions and deportation defense. Meanwhile in San Jose, sole practitioner Ning Gan has switched from handling new H-1B visa applications to expediting green-card requests from H-1B holders who are still employed. So far, though, this hasn't filled the gap from the diminished H-1B caseload.

Aside from the economy, politics may be another factor in depressing H-1B visa work. In fact, even when the recession ends, the demand for skilled foreign workers may continue to decline because of ongoing political pressure to cut back the number of H-1B visas issued annually. As Robert Sakaniwa, acting advocacy director at AILA's Washington, D.C., office, observes: "Rather than see the availability of jobs as a function of the economy, opponents depict H-1B workers as a source of the problem."

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