According to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”), as of May 21, 2010, approximately 19,600 H-1B cap-subject petitions were receipted. Additionally, USCIS has receipted 8,200 H-1B petitions for aliens with advanced degrees.

U.S. businesses use the H-1B program to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialized fields, such as scientists, engineers, or computer programmers. The current annual cap on the H-1B category is 65,000. However, some petitions are exempt from the cap under the advanced degree exemption provided to the first 20,000 petitions filed for a beneficiary who has obtained a U.S. master’s degree or higher. Others are completely exempt from the numerical limits.

Please note that up to 6,800 H-1B numbers may be set aside from the cap of 65,000 during each fiscal year for the H-1B1 program under the terms of the legislation implementing the U.S.-Chile and U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreements. Unused numbers in this pool are made available for H-1B use for the next fiscal year.

Today, United States Customs & Border Protection (“USCBP”) announced that the first-year anniversary of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (“WHTI”) at all land and sea ports of entry occurred on June 1, 2009. WHTI was intended to enhance border security and facilitate lawful cross-border travel between the U.S. and Canada and Mexico.

“WHTI is the first fully implemented 9/11 Commission border recommendation designed to enhance security while affording facilitation to legitimate border crossers through the use of technology,” said USCBP Commissioner Alan Bersin. “We have already seen a number of cases where new document requirements have led to significant positive results at increasing security at ports of entry.”‪

WHTI is the joint Department of State-Department of Homeland Security plan that implemented a key 9/11 Commission recommendation to establish document requirements for travelers entering the U.S. who were previously exempt, including citizens of the U.S., Canada and Bermuda. It requires U.S. and Canadian citizens, age 16 and older, to present a valid, acceptable travel document that denotes both identity and citizenship when entering the U.S. by land or sea.

According to USCBP, its preliminary analyses indicate that the implementation has had no negative impact on wait times at the land border ports of entry and the national compliance rate has been steady at 95 percent. USCBP also claims that WHTI has had a positive impact on specific apprehensions. False claims to U.S. citizenship apprehensions rose 25 percent on the southern border following WHTI implementation on June 1, 2009. The rate of fraudulent documents intercepted at the land border increased by 12 percent compared to the rate in 2008.

Under WHTI, radio frequency identification (“RFID”) technology and license plate readers were deployed, on-time and on-budget, to the top 39 high-volume land ports of entry covering approximately 95 percent of land border traffic. These facilitative technologies are playing an integral role in improving efficiencies.

RFID technology facilitates travel across the land border by allowing traveler information to be pre-positioned for the CBP officer as a vehicle approaches primary inspection. Processing travelers with RFID documents is 60 percent faster than processing documents that are not RFID-enabled.

More than five million WHTI-compliant, RFID-enabled documents have been issued. USCBP continues to strongly encourage travelers to obtain RFID-enabled travel document to expedite their entry and to help make the borders more efficient.

The WHTI RFID technology and license plate readers have also been installed at U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints and will soon be installed at CBP outbound operations sites.

As of May 28, 2010, United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (“USCIS”) has receipted 26,737 H-2B petitions, towards the 47,000 beneficiaries target for the second half of the fiscal year. This count includes 25,570 approved and 1,167 pending petitions. Beneficiaries target is the estimated number of petitions needed to reach the cap; it will always be higher than the actual cap.

The H-2B non-agricultural temporary worker program allows U.S. employers to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary non-agricultural jobs. There is a statutory numerical limit, or “cap,” on the total number aliens who may be issued a visa or otherwise provided H-2B status (including through a change of status) during a fiscal year.

Currently, the H-2B cap set by Congress is 66,000 per fiscal year, with 33,000 to be allocated for employment beginning in the 1st half of the fiscal year (October 1 – March 31) and 33,000 to be allocated for employment beginning in the 2nd half of the fiscal year (April 1 – September 30). Any unused numbers from the first half of the fiscal year will be made available for use by employers seeking to hire H-2B workers during the second half of the fiscal year. There is no “carry over” of unused H-2B numbers from one fiscal year to the next.

Generally, an H-2B worker who extends his/her stay in H-2B status will not be counted again against the H-2B cap. Similarly, the spouse and children of H-2B workers classified as H-4 nonimmigrants are not counted against this cap. Additionally petitions for the following types of workers are exempt the H-2B cap:

1. Fish roe processors, fish roe technicians and/or supervisors of fish roe processing
2. From November 28, 2009 until December 31, 2014, workers performing labor or services in the
   Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and/or Guam.

Once the H-2B cap is reached, USCIS may only accept petitions for H-2B workers who are exempt from the H-2B cap.