Planning for the FY2009 H-1B Cap

Sidley Austin LLP invites you to a webinar on Planning for the FY2009 H-1B Cap

On February 6th, the Sidley Immigration practice will hold a web seminar for clients and friends of the firm to address how employers can best plan for this year’s H-1B visa quota. Each year, the demand for H-1B visas has increased, while at the same time the window of opportunity for H-1B applicants has grown smaller and smaller. Last year, the general 65,000 quota was reached on April 1st, the first day H-1B filings were accepted. In fact, on April 1st the USCIS received more H-1B petitions than available under the cap, resulting in a lottery which left close to half the applicants with out a visa number. Graduates of U.S. masters programs, who enjoy a special 20,000 H-1B quota fared slightly better, with their H-1B cap being hit during the first week of May. As the H-1B crisis grows, legislative attempts to expand the H-1B numbers have failed. This year, on April 1st the USCIS will once again begin accepting H-1B petitions for the upcoming fiscal year. If history is any guide, H-1B availability will once again be very limited, with a large number of potential applicants being frozen out of the process.

Designed for in-house legal and human resources professionals, the presentation will address a number of important issues related to the H-1B quota, including:

• The history behind the H-1B numerical limitation and reasons the cap is likely to be open for a short time frame again this year
• Identifying employees who are subject to the cap and those who are exempt
• Special exemptions for employees from Singapore, Chile and Australia from the H-1B cap
• Strategies for dealing with fallout from cap-gap problems and other worst case scenarios
• Travel restrictions during the pendency of an H-1B petition
• Alternatives to the H-1B visa for employees frozen out of the process
• Potential legislative solutions to the H-1B cap situation

Please RSVP by replying in the registration form found on the right hand side of this page. 

Sidley Austin LLP is an approved accredited provider of New York CLE credit. To accommodate for the NY CLE requirements, this program will be offered as a teleconference for NY participants who wish to receive CLE credit. Handouts will be sent to these participants. This program provides non-transitional credit for experienced attorneys.

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