Washington: Professionals seeking H1B Visas to work in America will now have to wait till the next fiscal year following the US Government's decision not to accept any more applications for the popular programme.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced yesterday (Feb 17, 2004) that it has received enough H-1B petitions, which allows US companies to bring skilled foreign labour into the country, to meet this fiscal year's (FY) Congressionally mandated cap of 65,000 new workers and it will not accept any new applications for first-time employment.

The decision came nearly seven months ahead of the expiry of the 2004 FY on September 30.

Applications can be resubmitted for FY 2005 H1-B employment from April 1, 2004 and Visas will be issued after October 1, when the next fiscal year commences, a USCIS release said.

Petitions for current H-1B workers, however, do not count towards the Congressionally mandated H-1B cap, it said.

Accordingly, USCIS will continue to process petitions to extend the amount of time a current H-1B worker may remain in the US, change the terms of their employment, allow current workers to change employers and to work concurrently in a second H-1B position.

USCIS noted that petitions for new H-1B employment are not subject to the annual cap if the alien will be employed at an institution of higher education or a related or affiliated non-profit entity, or at a non-profit research organisation or a Governmental research organisation.

US Congress had temporarily raised the number of H-1B Visas available from 65,000 to 195,000 in 2000 till September 2003 in response to the hi-tech boom.