Browsekid Sidhu sent us a tip to this post on the TechRepublic Blogs, that talks about the lawsuit filed by some anti H1B activists in a NJ court. [UD post]

The article written by Toni Bowers, Head Blogs Editor of TechRepublic Blogs had a technicality out of place, unnoticeable to most but significant enough to affect the opinion of laymen. The post read

This latest rule is trying to circumvent the 65,000 annual cap of people allowed to get the H-1B

As Sidhu points out, this is technically incorrect because the 17 months extension applies to the quota of 20,000 American educated international students only. A brief email to Toni from Über Desi explaining this caveat fixed this technical detail. Turns out it was unintentional. All thanks to an alert reader, Sidhu.

Email communication after the jump.

Email from UD:

From: Santosh
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 7:21 AM
To: Toni Bowers
Subject: Suit filed against Department of Homeland Security over changes to H-1B visa

Toni,
I read your post and its obvious we’re on opposite sides of the fence on the H1B issue. However, I’m not here to argue or vent, just to point out a technical detail on this statement.

“This latest rule is trying to circumvent the 65,000 annual cap of people allowed to get the H-1B”

Since you’re talking about OPT extensions, it actually deals with American educated foreign students. They have a separate quota of 20000. This extension deals exclusively with those 20000 students, not the majority 65000 professionals.

Thanks,
Santosh
Blogger
UberDesi.com

Reply from Toni Bowers:

From: Toni Bowers
To: Santosh
Subject: RE: Suit filed against Department of Homeland Security over changes to H-1B visa

Thanks for the correction. I got the information form the Wall Street Journal. However, you are correct in that my sentence should have read “Critics claim that this latest rule is trying to circumvent…” I have changed that and added an addendum to the piece that includes your clarification about the numbers.

Toni Bowers
Head Blogs Editor
TechRepublic

Turns out WSJ (or someone from WSJ) provided inaccurate information on the above topic.
Lesson learned
#1 Assume the best in people
#2 Simple polite communication can fix most issues
#3 Nothing stops the flow of incorrect information like alert readers (Kudos Sidhu)

On a peripherally related note, Toni Bowers has some interesting career advice, which our readers might be interested in. [Toni Bowers' blog posts]

If you come across similar incidences on the Internet, point it out to us and we will work on resolving them.

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