U.S. hits visa cap for skilled foreign workers for third year in a row

Demand for skilled foreign worker visas has outstripped the nation’s limits for the third year in a row.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced this week that it had received enough petitions for H-1B visas from employers to meet legal caps for the fiscal year beginning in October. Federal law says the government may not issue more than 65,000 of the visas per year, with some exceptions. Additionally, 20,000 more visas are available for those who have received graduate degrees from U.S. schools.

USCIS officials said they will use a computer-generated process to randomly select H-1B petitions since they had received so many. The visas are reserved for foreigners who can work temporarily in specialty fields that require some level of theoretical or technical expertise. Many of these jobs, for example, require a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent in experience or more. Atlanta’s demand for these skilled foreign workers is among the highest in the nation, federal records show.