Odds have worsened in H-1B visa lottery: study

Ahead of the annual H-1B lottery season beginning March 6, a new report finds the odds of any H-1B hopeful winning the visa lottery have only gotten worse in the past three years.

The National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan think tank based in Arlington, Virginia, attributes this to the caps on these visas for highly skilled foreign workers, coveted by Indian tech professionals.

In 1990, the US government capped the number of H-1B visas issued annually at 65,000, reserving an additional 20,000 for applicants with a master’s degree or higher in 2004. These quotas, which amount to 0.05% of the US labor force, have not changed even though the number of people seeking immigrant visa has skyrocketed.

READ: Now you can renew H-1B visa in US (February 6, 2024)

The H-1B annual limit is a significant problem for most technology companies, along with the low yearly and per-country limits for employment-based green cards, says the report.

H-1B status is generally the only way a high-skilled foreign national, including an international student, can work long-term in the United States.

Analysts say the low annual limit for H-1B temporary visas is an economic drag on sectors that need skilled professionals, including technology, health care and manufacturing.

Canada has no annual limit on its high-skilled temporary visa category. In contrast, in the United States, the H-1B cap has been reached every year for more than two decades.

READ: USCIS raises H-1B visa and immigration fees (February 1, 2024)

Last year, 25% of the 758,994 eligible registrants were selected, down from 27% in 2022, 44% in 2021 and 46% in 2020. The report found that denial rates for H-1B petitions rose in FY 2023 but remained lower than under the Trump administration.

The top employers of H-1B visa holders did not see their denial rates increase in FY 2023. However, many mid-range filers saw their rates rise.

The analysis finds US Citizenship and Immigration Services adjudicators may have grown more comfortable denying cases following a May 2020 legal settlement that ended many restrictive practices.

“The denial rate for H-1B petitions for initial employment (new H-1B petitions that count against the annual cap) rose to 3.5% in FY 2023 from 2.2% in FY 2022,” according to the NFAP study.

NASSCOM: Curbs on H-1B, other work visas ‘harmful’ to US economy (June 23, 2020)

“An NFAP analysis found almost two-thirds of the higher denial rate can be attributed to companies with more than 10 H-1B applications and a greater than 10% denial rate.”

The vast majority of the top 25 companies with the most approved new H-1B (initial) petitions in FY 2023 did not see an increase in their denial rates.

Due to a series of restrictive policy changes during the Trump administration that courts later found unlawful, the denial rate for H-1B petitions for initial employment rose to 24% in FY 2018, 21% in FY 2019 and 13% in FY 2020 before a legal settlement in June 2020 reduced denial rates below pre-Trump levels (4% in FY 2021 and 2.2% in FY 2022).

In FY 2023, Amazon had the most approved H-1B petitions for initial employment, with 4,052. That was lower than its total of 6,396 in FY 2022. USCIS approved approximately 19,000 fewer H-1B petitions in FY 2023 compared to FY 2022.

Processing priorities and USCIS catching up on backlogs in FY 2022 may have been factors. USCIS records a case in the fiscal year it is decided.

That means a company’s approvals for initial employment in FY 2023 might include cases that count against the FY 2024 cap, selection for which began in March 2023.

Other employers with among the most H-1B petitions approved for initial employment in FY 2023 were Cognizant with 2,597, Infosys (2,171), Google (1,267), TCS (1,174), Capgemini (1,110), Wipro (992), Microsoft (987), IBM (979), LTIMindtree (914) and Meta Platforms (735).

California (19,336) and Texas (17,824) were the top locations for employers with approvals of H-1B petitions for initial employment in FY 2023. Those two states were followed by New Jersey (10,710), New York (9,237), Virginia (7,679), Illinois (6,329), Massachusetts (4,778), Georgia (3,620), Michigan (3,496), Pennsylvania (3,390), North Carolina (3,275) and Florida (3,211).

Approximately 52% of approved new H-1B petitions in FY 2023 were in professional, scientific and technical services. Second was educational services (14%), which includes universities. Stanford, with 307, had the most approved H-1B petitions for initial employment in FY 2023 among US universities.

NFAP examined denials in FY 2022 and FY 2023 and found employers that file more H-1B applications generally have lower denial rates.

“Employers that file more H-1B applications likely possess better internal processes and legal representation, resulting in fewer errors when selecting applicants and completing applications,” according to the analysis.

Employers that submitted 101 or more H-1B petitions for initial employment in FY 2023 had a denial rate of only 1.2%, far lower than employers that filed two applications (4.1%) or one application (4.7%).