A federal court has thrown out a lawsuit against the lottery system used to decide who should get H-1B US visas, a form of US visa particularly desirable to professionals and IT firms overseas, especially in India. The Oregon federal judge’s ruling means that when the 2018 fiscal year’s H-1B US visa issuance process kicks off on 3 April, it will not have altered.
Those H-1B US visa applicants who are successful will still be determined by a lottery system, implemented by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The limit for available H-1B US visas is 65,000, as mandated by Congress, for the general category. There is a further 20,000 accessible to overseas students who have gained higher degrees or masters from an academic institution in the US. But USCIS receives more applications than that number allows for.
Two companies from Portland, landscape architecture firm, Walker Macy, and web development business, Tenrec Inc, filed the legal challenge against the current lottery system. US District Court Judge, Michael Simon took the side of USCIS in the challenge, saying discretion about how to deal with petitions is theirs alone.
Simon says the plaintiffs could not suggest a method of ordering 15,000 petitions delivered at the same time, which was any less arbitrary than random selection by a computer. Brett Renison, the attorney who attempted the challenge, says he disagrees with the decision and still believes Congress could come up with a better solution.