Eric Thomas or Frances Cox 202-822-9491 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 3, 2007

2008 H-1B Visa Cap Is Reached Immediately

This Year's Foreign Grads of U.S. Universities Shut Out of Job Market for 18 Months

Compete America Cites Need for Visa Reform This Year

Washington, D.C. – The unprecedented announcement today by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that the FY ’08 allotment of H-1B visas was met on the very first day applications were accepted was cited by Compete America as evidence that reform of the visa system for highly educated foreign professionals is critical and must be enacted this year.

“America is the home to a majority of the world’s great universities and we have historically benefited from the contributions of the world’s brightest scholars and researchers.  The class of 2007 is no different.  However, because of arbitrary visa caps, we are now in the position of graduating thousands of the world’s top innovators, engineers and scientists and telling them they cannot work in the United States,” said Robert Hoffman, Vice President for Government and Public Affairs at Oracle and Co-Chair of Compete America.  “Our broken visa policies for highly educated foreign professionals are not only counterproductive, they are anticompetitive and detrimental to America’s long-term economic competitiveness.”

Hitting the 2008 cap in April is significant because even though foreign students may be employed for 12 months of “optional practical training” following graduation, employment eligibility will expire for most in May or June of 2008, leaving a gap of several months before they may be employed again – or even remain in the United States – when FY 2009 begins on October 1, 2008.

“While we need to do more as a nation to encourage American students to pursue degrees in the fields of math, science, engineering and technology, the fact remains that more than one-half of the U.S. advanced degrees in these fields are typically earned by foreign students.  U.S. companies must be able to recruit from this talent pool if we are to continue to innovate and create quality jobs here in the United States,” Hoffman stated.  “Congress must reform the visa process for highly educated foreign professionals this year.”

For more information on how highly educated immigration benefits America, please visit www.competeamerica.org.

Compete America (www.competeamerica.org) is a coalition of corporations, educators, research institutions and trade associations concerned about legal, employment-based immigration and committed to ensuring that the United States has the highly educated workforce necessary to ensure continued innovation, job creation and leadership in a worldwide economy.