By DIANE STAFFORD | The Kansas City Star

U.S. employers have yet to ask for as many H-1B work visas as authorized for the federal fiscal year beginning in October.

For the first time in several years, applications for the employer-sponsored temporary work visas for foreign workers did not reach the cap within a few days after the filing period opened.

Applications for the 65,000 visas authorized by Congress opened April 1. As of Wednesday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had received only about half that number, said Marilu Cabrera, regional spokesman for the federal agency.

Immigration watchers said the unusual decline probably reflected U.S. job losses from the recession and a political climate that would make it unpopular for companies to import workers when Americans have been laid off.

The visa program for fiscal 2010 also authorizes 20,000 H-1B work visas for foreign-born workers who have earned U.S. master’s degrees or higher. Those graduates are exempted from the 65,000 cap.

Cabrera said those applications still were short of the total allowed.

Last year, the limit for both kinds of visas was reached within five days, and a computerized draw determined which employers received the visa permits.

Gizie Bekele, an immigration law specialist at Lathrop & Gage, noted this week at a Kansas City legal seminar that companies receiving federal bailout funding have an additional roadblock this year in applying for H-1B visas. They must show proof that H-1B workers would not displace American workers and that American workers are not available to do the job.