Sharp Increase In H-1B Visa Denials

H-1B visa petitions for intitial (new) employment in the U.S. are being increasingly denied. That's according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis found that the denial rate nationwide grew from 6 percent in FY2015 to to 32 percent in FY2019. The H-1B program is the largest temporary visa program in the U.S. and it serves as the primary means of entry to the country for skilled immigrants. President Trump has criticized the scheme on numerous occasions, claiming it has been abused by employers and that it has driven down wages for Americans. When Trump issed his "Buy American and Hire American" executive order in April 2016, it resulted in USCIS and its adjudicators raising the standard of proof for approving H-1B petitions despite the fact that no new law or regulation allowed it to do so legally.

The increase is starting to impact some of America's biggest and best-known tech companies with the 27 top employers of H-1B visa holders all seeing an increase in denial rates between FY2015 and FY2019. The following infographic provides an overview of the trend across ten well-known companies with Ernst & Young seeing denials rise from 0.3 percent in 2015 to 44 percent in 2019. During the same period, Microsoft's denial rate grew from 1 percent to 13 percent while Amazon's climbed from 1 to 5 percent. Even though Apple and Google also suffered increases, they were not as drastic at 1 and 3 percent for both companies. The denial rate for continuing employment is also growing at a steady pace and it climbed from 3 percent in FY2015 to 18 percent in FY2019.