A federal lawsuit has been filed in New Jersey charging the Bush administration with illegally avoiding the current limits for the H1-B visa program. The Immigration Reform Law Institute, the Programmers Guild and others said the administration has improperly extended the time foreign nationals can work in the U.S. on student visas from one year to 29 months.

“They did this with absolutely no legal basis,” said John Miano, founder of The Programmers Guild in Summit, N.J. The government’s move has been supported by tech companies that have been pressing unsuccessfully to raise the H-1B visa caps so they can hire more foreign workers. Currently only 85,000 H-1B visa applications are allowed each year. Under the H-1B visa, someone can work for six years and then apply as a permanent resident. Opponents say the H-1B program and new new student visa extension hurts U.S. workers.

However major corporations say they need highly skilled professionals and it is the brightest and the most talented that they seek no matter what their nationality. In their opinion the caps on visas hinder their economic development. Last year Google applied for 248 H-1B visas but more than 25% of these were rejected. It is because of situations like this that many are calling for an extension to the visa cap.