To be completely honest, a lot of that backlog is completely self-imposed thanks to the way (mostly Indian) body shops game the H1B system. Keep in mind that I

To be completely honest, a lot of that backlog is completely self-imposed thanks to the way (mostly Indian) body shops game the H1B system. Keep in mind that If I want to hire: A smart graduate from EPFL, Polytechnique or ETH Zurich who interned at CERN and has contributed to the Linux kernel for a software engineering job at a unicorn startup or A grad from a second tier "technical college" in India with a visa refusal rate of ~90% for a job doing manual UI testing and QA for a body shop [0]. my only path forward is H1. They'll both be listed as "computer related occupations" and apply for the same visa in the same quota. Does that make any sense to anyone? Of course, my odds of getting a lottery spot for the former are dramatically lower, since we all know body shops and consulting firms won't hesitate to file 4-5 applications per seat they plan to fill out (so one can hopefully get a spot in the lottery and not get any RFE). Let's be real for a moment here: if the people applying fraudulently were to simply respect the law and only use these visas for real specialty occupations the backlog would clear itself in a few years. Thankfully, the previous administration started issuing more RFEs and catching fraudulent applicants [1]. [0] https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/silicon-valleys-body-shop-secret/78781/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/silicon-valleys-body-s... [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-h-1b_b_5890d86ce4b0522c7d3d84af https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-h-1b_b_5890d86ce4b0522c...