VisaNow.com, a Chicago company that helps applicants file visas online, said applications are up 12.5 percent over last year, making it likely that the maximum 195,000 visas will be issued before Sept. 30, the end of the government's fiscal year. Last year H-1B visas were capped at 115,000.

VisaNow analyzed recently released Immigration and Naturalization Service figures that showed 224,876 applications were filed from Oct. 1, 2000, through May 23, a jump over the same period the previous year. The figures suggest that H-1B immigration will soon reach the new cap, which was raised despite heavy lobbying against an increase by engineering groups, including the IEEE-USA.

An INS spokeswoman would only say that as of May 23, 117,000 visas had been approved. Last year, the INS stopped taking applications on March 17 because it felt it was nearing that year's 115,000-visa cap. VisaNow said that on May 23, 2000, the INS stated publicly that it had received 199,836 visa applications. More came in after that date, according to VisaNow.

"We've looked at the numbers, and if the receipts continue at this rate the H-1B cap should be hit," said Mark Shevitz, marketing vice president at VisaNow. "That could happen as early as August."

The influx of foreign workers, many of them programmers and other skilled technical employees, comes as U.S. layoffs continue across the high-tech sector. Lucent Technologies this week said it would slash another 15,000 to 20,000 workers, adding to the 19,000 cuts already announced. Motorola and Nortel earlier announced layoffs of 30,000 each, and other corporations have undertaken smaller staffing cutbacks.

Surveys show varying degrees of concern about the influx of immigrant workers, along with acknowledgment that they are a necessary part of the technical work force. A June poll by the job board techies.com (Bloomington, Minn.) showed that 85 percent of the 1,000 respondents were concerned about losing jobs to non-U.S. citizens. Sixty percent thought immigrant hiring could cause pay scales to drop.

Despite those concerns, the techies.com survey showed little animosity toward immigrant workers. A 58 percent majority felt that H-1Bs are "equally talented and as productive as U.S.-born employees," and 47 percent said these temporary workers were "important or very important" to the U.S. economy.

As the number of foreign workers swells beyond last year's total, it remains unclear to what extent layoffs may be affecting H-1B workers themselves. Potentially, some may be forced to quickly leave the country if they are caught in a layoff and cannot find work elsewhere. H-1B visas dictate that to stay in the United States, the recipient must have a job.

"Though there's a lot of talk about layoffs, I don't know that there are that many [H-1B visa] people actually leaving," said John Miano, chairman of the Programmers Guild, a Summit, N.J., group representing the interests of software specialists.

Not only is this year's 195,000-visa cap "far more than last year's 115,000," Miano said, the figure does not include "the numbers of people that go into education" on other types of visas. Changes in the visa laws have made temporary employees at universities exempt from the cap count. "So there will be substantially more people coming in than the 195,000 cap for this year," he said.

"Personally, I think there will be 175,000 to about 195,000 visas issued this year," said Lynn Shotwell, director of government relations at the American Council of International Personnel in Washington. "Although there's been a real slowdown in IT, there are other industries that have picked up the slack in H-1B usage. A lot of school districts are going overseas for teachers, and there are pharmacies that are importing pharmacists. I also think there are a lot more small employers who did not previously know about H-1Bs but are now hiring one or two people."

No one keeps track of the number of H-1B workers laid off and forced to leave the country. However, those who watch the field hold wildly diverging opinions, as might be expected when there are no clear facts.

"H-1Bs are laid off more because most of them are contracting, and contractors usually get laid off first," said Amar Veda, a spokesman for the Immigrants Support Network (Budd Lake, N.J.), a group that helps H-1Bs to get green cards.

But that's far from a universal viewpoint. "The layoffs have been mainly in the software area, which is also where most of the high-tech H-1Bs are. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the Americans [U.S. citizens and permanent residents] are more likely to be laid off than the H-1Bs," said Norm Matloff, a University of California at Davis professor who is a well-known critic of the H-1B program.

When H-1Bs do get laid off, they face tough consequences if they can't find a new job fast. INS rules currently say that H-1Bs must leave the country within 10 days of the termination of their employment. The agency has promised to review this timetable, but the expected change is now several weeks overdue.

Observers noted that lax enforcement has somewhat reduced the urgency for job-hunting immigrants, generally expanding the 10-day deadline — at least informally. Veda of the Immigrants Support Network also noted that some of the safety nets available to U.S. citizens can't be accessed by temporary-visa holders.

"H-1Bs pay unemployment insurance, but they aren't able to draw it," Veda said. "To get unemployment benefits, you have to provide your permanent alien number. H-1Bs don't have that."

Though Immigrants Support Network's mission is to help temporary workers stay in the United States, the group does not support efforts to bring in more temporary workers.

"There's a surplus of H-1Bs now," Veda said. "A big problem is that they can't switch employers if a new job opens up." That's because when an H-1B worker who has applied for a green card changes jobs, he or she must start a new green-card application, setting back a process that takes four to seven years. The H-1B visa allows them to stay a maximum of six years.

Moreover, some observers said that since the U.S. economy began to head south, some companies have become less willing to help H-1Bs get their permanent-residency visas.

"The only change I see [this year] is that many, if not most, employers have stopped offering most of their new H-1B hires sponsorship for green cards," said UC Davis' Matloff. That means the immigrants must find lawyers and the proper agencies themselves, and also pay the legal and governmental fees, which were often paid for by employers in better economic times.

Given recent changes in immigration regulations, just how many of the allowed visas will count toward the H-1B cap is open to discussion. Shevitz at VisaNow estimated that about 70 percent will count, while Shotwell at the American Council of International Personnel estimated the figure at about 60 percent. Among the vagaries that make it difficult to determine an actual count are that some applications won't be approved, some visa recipients won't move to the United States and many of the visas issued won't count toward the cap for a variety of reasons.

As a further sign of confusion, critics of the INS point out that a snafu last year caused the agency to give out thousands more visas than the law allowed.