On April 11, 2018, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the agency had received 190,098 H-1B petitions during the initial filing period, April 2 – 6, 2018. USCIS also reported that it conducted a computer-generated random selection process (lottery) to select the H-1B petitions to meet the congressionally-mandated cap of 65,000 and the U.S. advanced degree exemption, known as the master's cap, of 20,000 for fiscal year 2019.
USCIS begins the lottery by implementing the random selection process to the master's cap first. These petitions are for potential H-1B workers with a master's (or higher) degree from a U.S. university or college. All unselected master's cap petitions then become part of the random selection process for the 65,000 cap. Following this process, USCIS will reject and ultimately return unselected petitions with their filing fees.
Based on past experience, we expect to begin receiving receipts for selected H-1B petitions, as well as unselected petitions with their filing fees, within the next several weeks.
If you have filed a petition through our office, Pryor Cashman will be in touch with you on any case-specific developments and to consider next steps for those cases that were not selected.
USCIS will continue to accept and process petitions that are otherwise exempt from the cap. These H-1B petitions include petitions: (1) to extend the stay of a current H-1B worker; (2) to change the terms of employment for a current H-1B worker; (3) to enable an H-1B worker to change employers; (4) to enable a current H-1B worker to work concurrently in a second H-1B position; and (5) petitions made by institutions that are exempt from the cap.
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.