Foreign workers are critical to the health and growth of US businesses, particularly in New Jersey’s concentrated market of pharmaceutical, engineering, technology, and other innovative industries. In 2024, there were roughly 5,000 New Jersey companies sponsoring H-1B visas, which are nonimmigrant visas allowing foreign workers to fill specialty occupations in the US for up to six years. These companies range from Teaneck-based Cognizant Technology Solutions with 1,081 non-citizens employees, to accounting giant Ernst & Young with 850, to hundreds of others across the state employing one or a handful of H-1B workers. With just over 20% of college students graduating with a bachelor’s degree in the STEM fields, the US lags well behind China (40%) and India (34%), so competing on the world stage means bringing in talent from these and other tech-heavy countries.
“The state of New Jersey does have a tremendous number of H-1Bs because this is where the worldwide brain drain begins,” says David Nachman, Esq., managing attorney at the Nachman Phulwani Zimovcak (NPZ) Law Group (VISASERVE). “This is where you’ll find large corporations looking for refined and highly specialized skillsets. With more remote work going on across the country, people are also working in other places, while feeding the tax base and economy in New Jersey.”
Needing this talent is one thing; getting it here is another. H-1B workers – chosen each year through a random lottery – are capped at 65,000 annually for those with a bachelor’s degree or its US equivalent, plus an additional 20,000 for those with a US advanced degree (master’s or higher). These numbers are established by the Immigration Act of 1990 and H-1B Visa Reform Act of 2004, respectively.
“It boggles my mind that we talk about getting the best and the brightest here to the US, but rather than opening it up and letting it be a free market endeavor, the government has established a cap system,” Nachman says. “When I go to work, it’s not that I’m immigrating individuals; I’m competing against the other countries like the UK, Australia, Canada, and India that are opening their doors to get these highly skilled people to their countries because those governments know it’s going to add to their economic infrastructure.”
While the H-1B cap system is restrictive, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is working to make it more equitable. When H-1B registrations ballooned to 758,000 for the 2024 cap year – a 140% increase over 2023 – USCIS implemented a new rule that each person is entered into the lottery once, regardless of how many employer registrations are submitted on their behalf.
“Companies were gaming the system, using staffing agencies to increase the number of entries for the same person,” Nachman says. “The new process, which is ‘individual centric,’ almost cut the number of entries in half to about 450,000. We’ve rooted out the fraud, and the government is slowly learning.”
At the same time, USCIS has raised the H-1B cap lottery registration fee from $10 to $215 effective for the 2026 fiscal year cap season beginning in March. According to Mark Harley, an immigration lawyer with Fox Rothschild, this significant increase may not deter larger companies, but might be too much for startups with limited resources.
“Increased government fees are not usually positive, but it may cut back on some employers filing hundreds or even thousands of registrations,” Harley says. “Another positive change in recent years is that you don’t have to file the paperwork for all H-1B petitions, but only those that have been selected under the registration lottery, which is a lot easier and economical for employers and the attorney as well.”
In recent years, USCIS has been making reforms, such as creating an online H-1B registration system, and the agency now offers an optional online system where employers and legal representatives can create, review and submit H-1B petitions, moving the process to a more digital format. Prior to this, H-1Bs were all filed on paper and then uploaded to USCIS Processing Centers.
As things become more automated, however, problems have arisen to slow the process. For example, there was a glitch in the registration system last year that caused missing signatures on Form G-28 and the registration filing deadline being moved back three days as the error was addressed.
Still, with just about 25% of H-1B applicants accepted, employers in various tech fields are often forced to seek other methods of bringing foreign talent to the US. According to Jessica Cook, a partner in the Fisher Phillips Immigration Practice Group, this can include alternative visa categories, depending on the person’s citizenship, credentials, and intended employment.
“Citizens of Canada and Mexico may be eligible for the TN visa. Australian citizens coming to the US to work in a professional position may qualify for the E-3 visa,” Cook says. “Individuals with extraordinary ability in their field, such as sciences, business, art, or education can apply for the O-1 visa. And individuals working for an international company may be able transfer to the company’s US operations using the L-1 visa.”
The O-1 visa is a viable path for about 75% of applicants who don’t get H-1Bs through the lottery, Nachman says. Issuance of O-1s went from 15,415 issued in 2020 to 38,782 in 2023, with between 80% and 95% of applications accepted, which he attributes to the Biden administration’s “backdoor understanding” of the need to bring foreign workers to the US, also noting the process is likely to tighten up with Donald Trump’s return to office in January.
“With Donald Trump elected again, we should expect to see new restrictions on the H-1B visa,” Cook adds. “Similar to his first term, we should expect to see H-1B restrictions resulting in increases in H-1B requests for evidence and denials. Trump may also try to revive some H-1B rules developed during his first term that the courts blocked.” The Trump changes would have narrowed the definition of “specialty occupations” eligible for H-1B visas, shortened visa terms from three years to one year, and enhanced the DHS’s enforcement abilities.
Skilled foreign workers seeking an H-1B can also look at academic institutions, which are cap-exempt and offer positions in finance, IT, and marketing, among others. This includes not-for-profit companies affiliated with academia, hospitals affiliated with medical schools, and government research organizations. And a new USCIS ruling that came out early last year seeks to implement an even more liberal interpretation for this cap-exemption. An academic institution can sponsor a student to do research 5 to 10 hours a week, allowing them to fill in the other 30 to 35 hours with a company like Amazon or Google.
It’s always about getting more skilled people into the workforce in the US – and New Jersey, specifically – through any legal immigration-related means possible, Nachman says, adding, “We may be in the shadow of New York, Philadelphia, and Silicon Valley, but New Jersey is a major industrial hub. I was born and bred in New Jersey, and our practice is based here, so our staff feels a dedication to ensuring these folks get here and bring what they can to help us to build and solidify New Jersey’s economic infrastructure.”
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