What are the difficulties in applying for an H 1B visa in the United States?

First, employers need to pay extra fees to the federal government to help international students apply for work visas, and special lawyers are needed to handle relevant documents. Unless the company particularly needs the professional skills of this international student, foreigners will not be considered in any job that can find native Americans. Moreover, foreign students are far behind the locals in language and culture, so they have no advantage in job hunting.

Second, there is a certain quota for work visas issued by the federal government every year. Before fiscal year 2003, the annual quota for foreigners was 65,438+095,000. After "9 1 1", the annual visa volume once dropped to 65,000, and now it is 85,000. Among these places, 7,000 places reserved for citizens of two allies, Chile and Singapore, need to be deducted. Every year, the number of H 1B applications is very tight. Now the application of H 1B is nicknamed "Lotto" by everyone. Applying for a visa is only the first step, but it does not mean that it will be approved. Because of the quota limit, H 1B is basically decided by "random lottery", mainly relying on "luck". You know, in the application process of H 1B in the last fiscal year of 20 17, the Immigration Bureau received 236,000 applications. Statistics show that the "winning rate" of master's degree and above applications is 60%, while others are only about 30%. Therefore, most employers are sometimes reluctant to take the risk of hiring international students who need to apply for a work visa, fearing that if they can't get a job, their jobs will probably be interrupted because of the departure of international students. Of course, winning doesn't mean entering the safe. After the Immigration Bureau issues the lottery notice, it will have three months to comprehensively review the application after the lottery, mainly depending on whether the applicant's major and work are related and whether the company meets the relevant regulations. And many people were "brushed down" during this review period.

Pain point: the application time is only once a year

Basically, international students graduate mainly in winter and summer vacations, that is, May and June, 1 1 and 65438+February, while the deadline for applying for H 1B is early April, which means that lawyers must prepare all the materials and send them to the immigration office accurately at the end of March. For international students who graduate in summer or winter, the chance to apply for H 1B is only in April next year. The comparative advantage of international students who graduate in summer is that they have about 10 months to find a job, while those who graduate in winter have only about 3 months. They must find a suitable work unit and get the commitment from the unit to help them apply for a work visa. Relatively speaking, only international students majoring in STEM have 2-3 application opportunities, because they can extend the OPT time.