H-1B visa applications breached this year's cap despite restrictions by US

USCIS also received adequate applications for 20,000 visas issued for those with advanced degrees

The US on Friday said the cap of 65,000 H1B visas for financial year 2018 has been breached within four days of the opening of the window to apply. 

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency handling immigration, also said it had received adequate applications for the 20,000 H1B visas issued for those who have advanced degrees.

The US had come out with fresh measures, including increased scrutiny of H1B visa holders in America, which would favour US technology firms over Indian IT service providers, who traditionally had been using the visa programme to send people to the US for projects. In addition, several Bills have been presented in the US Congress to impose higher wages for these visa holders to discourage sending Indian engineers.

“The Trump administration would clearly like to introduce more protectionist policies. However, it is also clear that the Congress has limited appetite to enact significant protectionist legislation,” Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO of Everest Group, said.

Indian nationals account for nearly two out of three H-1B visa holders in the US. But majority of them are from companies such as IBM and Facebook. Indian firms such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies have been reducing dependency on H1B visas, accounting to less than 20 per cent of the nearly 80,000 visas issued annually.