Amazing and ridiculous that the 60,000 visas that gets allocated every year got filled out on the very first day of the season.
Visa power: Uncle Sam’s ‘no’ hurts India
Looks like Indians are giving the toughest trouble to the policy makers here in US. I said Indians for one reason that everyone knows that more than 60 to 70% of the applicants in that 60,000 are from India.
In a way, I am a victim as well as beneficiary of this policy. Rollback to six years ago, when my H1b was being processed and when I was expecting that “flying out next week” call to pack my things up, I got a call from the recruiter at the then CBSI (now covansys) that my visa processing has been held up becoz the quota was over. That was somewhere in April of the year. Back then, it took from October to April to fill up those 65,000 ( This year it just took ONE GOD DAMN SINGLE DAY! ). So I was politely told to wait until Ocotber of that year. But my feelings were not as polite. I called up friend Ramesh, who then was working at CBSI Chicago, to ask him if he can do anything for me, as if he was the Secretary of State or something. Feels funny now, but when you are waiting in such a situation, you feel like you can beg to any soul living in US. Eventually, I was benefited for waiting 6 months becoz my application must have been up in the stack when the opened the offices on October 1st. As a bonus, US had increased the quota that year from 65,000 to some 130,000 or something. So that was the season when every tom, dick and this harry ( who? ofcourse me !) came to US.
Today I can exactly imagine how many such folks back in India must have felt when this news came out this morning. Good Luck to those guys who were lucky to have fell in the 60,000 odds and ‘Be Patient’ to those who fell out. There is always a next october…like I had 🙂
