H-1B Cap Reached
On June 12, 2012, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it had received enough H-1B petitions to fulfill the numerical limit for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2013. As of June 12, 2012, petitions for new employment of H-1Bs, that is, for employment of a person who is not yet in H-1B status for another employer, will not be accepted again until April 1, 2013. Those petitions received after April 1, 2013, must request employment starting October 1, 2013, so that they will be subject to next year’s cap (FY 2014).
H-1B1 petitions for nationals of Chile and Singapore may still be approved due to free trade agreements with those countries, and “cap exempt” employers (such as universities and nonprofit research organizations) may continue to seek H-1B status on behalf of their employees. In addition, petitions filed on behalf of current H-1B workers who have been counted previously against the cap will not be counted toward the FY 2013 H-1B cap.
The “final receipt date” for H-1B purposes is June 11, 2012. Regulations now provide that all H-1B petitions received by USCIS on or before June 11, 2012, have been submitted “under the cap,” but all H-1B petitions received by USCIS on or after June 12, 2012, will be rejected.
Contact Ivener & Fullmer about options for beneficiaries of H-1B petitions who did not make the cut-off for the cap, or if your organization wishes to sponsor any more cap-subject H-1B nonimmigrants for FY 2013.
