USCIS Announces H-1B Cap Reached for FY 2019, What’s Next?

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Today April 6, 2018 the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the H-1B general bachelor’s cap has been reached for fiscal year 2019. In addition, USCIS received more than 20,000 petitions for the advanced degree exemption.

Sometime within the next week, USCIS will conduct a random computer-generated process, known as a ‘lottery,’ to select the petitions needed to fill the 65,000-bachelor’s cap. USCIS will first randomly select the petitions that will count toward the advanced degree exemption. Unselected advanced degree petitions will then be entered into the random lottery that will be conducted to fill the 65,000-bachelor’s cap. All unselected cap-subject petitions will be rejected and in turn CIS will return the H-1B packages containing filing fees and rejection notices. CIS has not yet provided any details concerning the date the lottery will be conducted. We suspect it will occur within the next week. In the meantime, cap exempt H-1B petitions will continue to be processed including H-1B worker extensions, petitions requesting a change to the terms of an H-1B workers’ employment, and petitions requesting concurrent work for an H-1B worker.

So, what’s next?

Petitions filed with regular processing

If your employer filed your petition with regular processing, you will not know whether your petition has been selected in the lottery until late April through mid-May. Petitions filed under regular processing that were selected in the lottery will receive hard copy ‘receipt notices’ from USCIS. These notices will only be received by the attorney on file and the employer. In previous years, we began to receive these receipt notices in late April.

Receiving a receipt notice is great news. It means that you have been selected in the lottery, but it does not mean that your application has been approved. Once selected, your application will undergo adjudication, which takes several months.

Premium processing

As a reminder, please remember that USCIS has suspended premium processing service until September 10, 2018. You may not file for premium processing service until USCIS announces resumption of the service.

Rejection Notices

If you do not receive a hard copy ‘receipt notice’ during the months of April and May, chances are your petition was not selected for fiscal year 2019. Filing fees for petitions that are not selected will not be cashed. If the filing fees have not been charged to the corresponding bank account during these months, it is very likely that the petition has been rejected. Unselected petitions will be returned to the attorney on file (including filing fees) from mid to late June and will be accompanied by an official hard copy rejection notice from CIS.

For more information about the H-1B visa please click here. To learn more about your rights as an H-1B worker please contact us.