Critics of the H-1B Visa program say U.S. employers are flocking to it to hire cheaper labor. Cherrie Yuen is one of the tens of thousands of H-1B holders who doesn’t see things so black and white. Yuen, a Hong Kong native, graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2005 with a master’s in computer engineering. Like all foreign national graduates with an advanced degree from a U.S. school, she could stay in the country one year to train with an employer. But like many such grads, her goal was to extend her stay on an H-1B visa. “During that year, I needed to exceed all expectations,” she says, so her employer would value her enough to put up with the H-1B expense and bureaucratic hurdles. Yuen made the cut--her employer agreed to sponsor her application in 2005, and she worked with human resources to make sure her application arrived the first day in April they’re accepted. She landed a visa.
