Atlanta Among Nation's Top Cities For H-1B Visas

ATLANTA — The process to secure temporary visas for highly skilled noncitizen workers, otherwise known as the H-1B, has become increasingly difficult under the Trump administration. The legal website Lawsuit decided to look into how many H-1B holders already work in the U.S., and broke down the information by how much money they earn, where in the country they're located, and by which companies they're employed.

According to the company, Atlanta ranks No. 7 among the nation's top 10 cities for the number of H-1B visa holders.

Not everyone can get an H-1B. It requires the recipient to have a university degree, and holders must already have a relationship with a company. The most common jobs for the sophisticated minds of these specialized visa holders are software developers, program analysts and software engineers, according to the study.

Denial rates for these visas have sky-rocketed in recent years.

In the 2015 fiscal year, denial rates for H-1Bs were approximately 6 percent. In the first quarter of the 2019 fiscal year, the same denial rate was closer to 32 percent.
California led the nation with the most recipients of the H-1B, as it currently has 310,332 workers using the specialized visa. New York and Texas rounded out the top three overall states, with over 350,000 recipients combined.

New York City has a commanding lead in the number of H-1B applicants for an individual city, with close to 70,000 workers using the specialized visa. California is also a hotbed for the number of salaried workers with H-1B status, as San Jose, San Francisco, and San Diego are all in the top five.

The three largest employers of H-1B applicants are Ernst & Young, Deloitte Consulting, and Cognizant Technology Solutions. All are successful companies with a plethora of software and data jobs, which all require advanced degrees — making them perfect spots for H-1B recipients.
Here are the top ten cities with the most workers with an H-1B:

1. New York, NY
2. San Jose, CA
3. San Francisco, CA
4. Chicago, IL
5. San Diego, CA
6. Santa Clara, CA
7. Atlanta, GA
8. Houston, TX
9. Cupertino, CA
10. Philadelphia, PA

Patch's Gus Saltonstall contributed to this report.