Visa Lawyer Blog
Welcome back to Visalawyerblog! As you all know, USCIS recently announced that it has completed the selection process to meet the 65,000/20,000 annual numerical limitations for H-1B fiscal year 2021.
All accountholders should have been notified of selection via their USCIS online accounts by March 31,2020. We can confirm that our office received all notices of selection before March 31, 2020.
If you were selected, the following status will appear on the petitioner’s USCIS online account:
Selected: Selected to file an FY 2021 H-1B cap-subject petition.
What’s Next?
Now that the selection process has been completed, petitioners who properly registered the beneficiary through the mandatory H-1B electronic registration process and were selected in the lottery are eligible to file a FY 2021 H-1B cap-subject petition with USCIS.
Petitioners who were not selected cannot file a petition with USCIS.
Please note that selection does not mean that an H-1B petition has been approved. The petitioner must still establish eligibility for petition approval at the time of filing and the application must go through adjudication based on existing statutory and regulatory requirements.
When can I file?
H-1B cap-subject petitions for FY 2021, including those petitions eligible for the advanced degree exemption, may now be filed with USCIS if based on a valid selected registration (as of April 1st).
Petitioners are not required to file on April 1st but may do so. The period of time that an H-1B cap-subject petition can be filed is indicated on the relevant registration selection notice (90 days).
How can I file?
Petitioner’s must file a paper application with USCIS. There is currently no option to file H-1B petitions online. Petitioners must include a printed copy of the applicable registration selection notice with the FY 2021 H-1B cap-subject petition.
Statistics
This was the first year that USCIS implemented a mandatory electronic registration process.
According to USCIS, nearly 275,000 unique registrations were submitted during the initial registration period.
Roughly 46% of all registrations were for prospective beneficiaries with U.S. advanced degrees.
There were more than 40,000 registration accounts created, and nearly 81% of submitted registrations were for potential beneficiaries from India (67.7%) and China (13.2%).
USCIS Deputy Director for Policy Joseph Edlow remarked, “The new H-1B electronic registration system has been an overall success. As a result of this modernized process, the amount of paper and data exchanged between USCIS and petitioners will dramatically decrease this year…The positive feedback received by users of the H-1B registration system, the limited amount of technical issues experienced during the registration period, and the ability to immediately respond to questions from registrants was the result of a comprehensive effort developed over the course of more than a year. This new registration system is one of many ways USCIS is improving the H-1B program.”
Our office has already notified petitioners who were selected. If you have any questions about your case, please contact your caseworker directly.
If you completed the electronic registration process on your own and need to file an H-1B petition, please contact our office for a consultation.
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