Dale is Right.....
Dale is correct[2 different recaptures 1) 101,000 & 2) 130,000]...Here is the latest from
www.shusterman.com
The employment-based option is becoming less attractive each month. In January 2005, the waiting times for persons born in India, China or the Philippines seeking to immigrate through the employment- based third preference category (EB-3) as professionals and skilled workers retrogressed from no wait time to three years literally overnight.
A couple of months later, the waiting times for unskilled workers went from zero to four years, also overnight. Soon, this category will become completely unavailable.
Recently, the State Department predicted that the EB-2 category (persons with advanced degrees or of exceptional ability), and possibly the EB-1 category (persons of extraordinary ability, outstanding researchers and professors and multinational executives and managers) for persons born in India and China would backlog within the next fiscal year.
Waiting times for the employment categories are going to continue to get longer and longer. Why? For starters, the Immigration Service, which approved very few applications for adjustment of status based on employment between late 2001 and the beginning of 2004 has been approving such applications at a record pace since mid-2004. The problem is that the quotas are set on an annual basis. Unused visa numbers in one fiscal year are not available for use in the next fiscal year.
The "recapture" provision recently passed by the House of Representatives would recover only 50,000 of the 130,000 immigrant visas lost between 2001 and 2004, and would restrict their usage to registered nurses and physical therapists. This is more a band-aid than a cure.
Consider the numbers. In fiscal year 2005, U.S. employers were able to use 248,000 EB immigrant visas, almost double the 140,000 usually available. This is because they used the normal 140,000 quota plus 7,000 unused family-based immigrant visas from the year before plus 101,000 "recaptured" visas from a law enacted in 2000, popularly known as AC-21. By September 30, all of the recaptured visas will be used.
What happens starting on October 1, 2005, the beginning of fiscal year 2006, when the quota reverts to a mere 140,000 visas plus the visas reserved for RNs and PTs?
It does not take a rocket scientist to predict that backlogs will continue to grow in most employment-based categories. This would be a tragedy for our country.
The United States is the country where the best and brightest minds from all over the world are attracted to. Just as our economy changed from one based on agriculture in the 19th century to one based on manufacturing in the 20th century, we must be prepared to be the leader in advanced technologies in the 21st century. Brain power is replacing muscle power.
This should be easy to accomplish since the U.S. has the finest system of higher education in the world. However, there is nothing in the DNA of Americans which makes us superior in intellect to other people from around the world.
The genius of the United States is that, more than any other country, we accept exceptional persons born around the world, and they, in turn, invent and refine the most advanced software, biotech drugs, and electronic equipment the world has ever seen. If we prevent these highly-talented people from residing in our country, maybe by the next generation, the leaders of these cutting edge industries will live in China or India.
Our immigration policies must continue to reunite families and offer a haven to refugees, but new laws need to be enacted to make our immigration system more self-interested. In an economy with hundreds of millions of workers, would doubling the quota of persons selected because of their needed skills from 140,000 to 280,000 damage our economy? On the contrary, it would stimulate the economy, and help insure the ascendancy of the U.S. for another generation.
We believe that Microsoft CEO Bill Gates' recent criticism of the H-1B program extends equally to employment-based immigration in general: "The whole idea of the H-1B visa thing is, 'Don't let too many smart people come into the country.' The whole thing doesn't make sense." Gates characterized the visa caps as "almost a case of a centrally controlled economy. If the demand is there, why have the regulation at all?"