By ALLISSA KLINE
Business First

American companies are not submitting H-1B nonimmigrant visa petitions to the federal government at the pace they submitted the requests last year.

The U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services Department last week said it will continue to take H-1B petitions until two caps are met: the 65,000 regular cap and the 20,000 educational-exemption cap for workers with a U.S. master's degree or higher. So far, the department has received less than half of the 65,000 regular cap.

One clear factor in the slower pace of filings? The downtrodden economy. Last year, the 65,000 cap was met April 8, 2008, following several years when the cap-meet date crept closer and closer to the first day - April 1 - that companies could apply.

"(The economy) has broken the trend," attorney Stephanie Scarborough, a partner at Serotte Law Firm LLC, said. "The trend has been to file, file, file on April 1, and now that trend has changed."

H-1B visas allow U.S. employers to temporarily hire foreign workers with bachelor's degrees or higher to work in specialty fields such as engineering, mathematics and medicine and health. If approved by USCIS, workers are granted a three-year stay in the country, which can be extended to six years.

While the number of regular H-1B petitions is down, USCIS said it is close to reaching the 20,000 master's cap. That means more employers are seeking foreign workers with graduate degrees, Scarborough said.

"More and more companies in this economic downturn are seeking more highly qualified people," she said. "They're not just satisfied with bachelor's degree people."

Employers can seek H-1B status for foreign workers starting April 1. If approved, work can begin Oct. 1, the start of the federal fiscal year.

More than 220 H-1B visa petitions have been filed by the Serotte firm. Scarborough expects those petitions to be approved within three or four months, she said.