On April 1, 2019, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will begin accepting new H-1B petitions for professional positions. We note that these petitions will have a start date of Oct. 1, 2019.

Please review your employment needs now to determine whether you wish to sponsor any of your current or prospective employees for H-1B status. This includes those professionals you already employ in F-1 optional practical training status, E-3 status, J-1/J-2 status or L-1B status, and any individuals you may wish to bring on board on or after Oct. 1, 2019.

We expect that the H-1B quota will be fully subscribed within the first five business days of April. In 2018, USCIS received over 190,000 H-1B petitions for only 85,000 spots (inclusive of petitions filed for the advanced degree exemption). Since we will be filing all of our clients' H-1B petitions on the first business day of April, if you haven't already done so, please let us know now or by no later than the middle of January of the H-1B cases that you would like us to prepare. We expect to roll out an online questionnaire this year (video instructions to follow shortly), which we hope will streamline the H-1B information-sharing process for you and your employees.

Finally, we note that recent reports indicate USCIS will issue a regulatory rule in the next several months establishing an electronic preregistration program for petitions subject to the H-1B lottery. We expect that under such a preregistration system, petitioners would submit basic information about the proposed H-1B position (such as title of position, salary and basic requirements) in lieu of a full H-1B petition filing. USCIS would then select certain entries from the electronic preregistration list and invite them to submit a full H-1B filing. USCIS states that implementation of such a preregistration program will save employers the burden of preparing an entire filing just to enter the lottery (with its uncertain results). (There have also been reports indicating that USCIS will issue a rule giving additional preference in the lottery process to H-1B beneficiaries with advanced degrees from U.S. universities.)

At this time, it is unclear whether the electronic preregistration system will be implemented in time for the fiscal year 2020 H-1B cap season. As of now, we will continue to prepare H-1B filings in anticipation that we will need to once again submit complete petitions at the opening of the lottery period. We will of course advise you if the preregistration program is operational before April 1, and we will provide further instructions on how to proceed with preparing your H-1B cases for filing.

Please note that we will have a breakfast seminar covering hot topics in business immigration on November 28th. Details to follow.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.