USCIS Completes Lottery for H-1B Cap
On April 13th USCIS completed the H-1B lottery, the random selection process used to meet the annual H-1B cap. Last week USCIS announced they had received more than the 65,000 general category petitions allowed under the cap and more than the 20,000 petitions allowed under the advanced degree exemption. In fact, USCIS received nearly 233,000 total H-1B Cap petitions during the one week filing period which was open from April 1st to April 7th. USCIS will reject and send back the forms and filing fees of all unselected petitions.
USCIS conducted the selection process for the advanced degree petitions first. The petitions that were not selected then became part of the random selection process for the remaining 65,000 H-1B visas. USCIS has announced they will begin adjudicating premium processing cases no later than May, 11, 2015.
