It's official: Obama admin makes H-1B hiring tougher

• No hiring by US firms receiving federal bailout.

• Limitation on H-1B petitions for 2010 is 65,000

Dealing a blow to Indian professionals seeking employment in the US, the Obama Administration has announced additional measures for hiring foreign specialists under the H-1B visa work programme making it more difficult for the firms receiving federal bailout to hire overseas workers.

These measures come about 10 days before the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) starts accepting petitions for new H-1B visas for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2009.

The USCIS last night announced the measures to enforce the provisions of the new Employ American Workers Act (EAWA) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which prohibits hiring of H-1B visa holders by US companies that receive the federal aid money. Indian nationals account for bulk of the coveted H-1B visas.

"Under this legislation any company that has received covered funding and seeks to hire new H-1B workers is considered an 'H-1B dependent employer'.

The USCIS reminded petitioners that "a valid LCA must be on file with DOL at the time the H-1B petition is filed with USCIS."

This means if the petitioner indicates on its petition that it is subject to the EAWA, but the Labour Condition Application does not contain proper attestations relating to H-1B dependent employers, USCIS will deny the H-1B petition.

The USCIS also announced that it will start accepting petitions for H-1B work visas for next fiscal from April one.

Lottery would decide successful applicants if the number of petitions for the fiscal beginning October 1 this year cross the annual cap, it said.

In a statement, the USCIS said the numerical limitation on H-1B petitions for fiscal year 2010 is 65,000. Additionally, the first 20,000 H-1B petitions filed on behalf of aliens who have earned a US masters' degree or higher are exempted from this cap.

However, petitions for new H-1B employment are exempted from the annual cap if the beneficiaries will work at institutions of higher education or a related or affiliated non-profit entities, or at non-profit research organisations or governmental research bodies, the USCIS said.

Thus, employers may continue to file petitions for these exempted H-1B categories seeking work dates starting in financial year 2009 or 2010.

All H-1B dependent employers must make additional attestations to the US Department of Labour (DOL) when filing the Labour Condition Application (LCA), the USCIS said.