Apple, other tech companies file brief challenging policies tightening H-1B visa criteria — Apple World Today

In early October, the Department of Homeland Security proposed to effectively replace the H-1B visa lottery, the method for selecting which foreign professionals receive the coveted visas each year, with a selection process that gives priority to the jobs with the highest salaries.

The new rules will irreparably injure the U.S. economy “by forcing U.S. businesses to discharge current employees — disrupting ongoing projects and imposing significant costs, and in some cases forcing companies to transfer work to locations outside the United States,” the business organizations, represented by Mayer Brown LLP, told a California federal judge.

In their amicus brief, the tech companies said the government ignores that most H-1B employees work in the information technology sector, where the “unemployment rate is extremely low, and there is a long-recognized lack of U.S. workers to fill available jobs.” They say these new rules threaten to stunt the U.S. economy’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.