FILE - People arrive before the start of a naturalization ceremony at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Miami Field Office in Miami, Aug. 17, 2018. Authorities say lottery bids for highly-educated worker visas plunged nearly 40% this year, claiming success against people who were “gaming the system” by submitting multiple, sometimes dubious, applications to unfairly increase their chances.
Bids tripled from 2021 to 2023 after the government said it would no longer require people to mail bulky paperwork to be eligible for the lottery, saying that time-consuming, expensive task could wait until they won one of up to 85,000 slots awarded annually. The only requirement was a $10 electronic registration fee, which eased barriers to participate but created an unintended opening for companies and employees to flood the agency with applications.
Infosys, an Indian technology outsourcing company, was the top employer of people with H-1Bs in 2023. Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Meta and Google were in the top 10.