Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium

On April 7, 2008, six days after the FY 2009 H-1B application process opened up, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had received approximately 163,000 H-1B petitions, exceeding the cap for H-1B visas for the fiscal year of 2009.  Of those 163,000 applicants, only 85,000 will receive an H-1B visa, chosen by a computer generated random selection process.  As a result, tens of thousands of foreign workers and American employers must wait until April of 2009 to apply again.

The limited number of H-1B visas available has many implications to the United States, from hurting our economy and competitiveness, to damaging U.S. public diplomacy around the world.  Join us as a panel of experts discusses the current issues of H-1B visas, its many implications to the United States, and the proper way to fix this system.