H1B Cap Reached for FY 2010 – Game Over

As we predicted last night the Cap was met today. As of December 21, 2009, USCIS has received sufficient petitions to reach the statutory cap for FY2010. USCIS has also received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the advanced degree exemption. USCIS will reject cap-subject petitions for new H-1B specialty occupation workers seeking an employment start date in FY2010 that are received after December 21, 2009 USCIS will apply a computer-generated random selection process to all petitions that are subject to the cap and were received on December 21, 2009.

Applicants will soon be getting ready for April 1, 2010 filings. Our advice is to start early, with DOL delays we have to start planning differently. More updates to come.