News Release from Jewell & Associates, PC
Today USCIS announced that it received approximately 124,000 H-1B petitions between April 1 and April 5. It was the first time the statutory H-1B cap of 85,000 (including 20,000 available under the advanced degree exemption) was reached within the first week of the filing period since 2008.
On April 7 USCIS used a computer-generated random selection process (commonly known as a “lottery”) to select a sufficient number of petitions needed to meet the cap. USCIS says that it conducted the selection process for advanced degree exemption petitions first; all advanced degree petitions not selected were then made part of the random selection process for the 65,000 limit. Any petitions not randomly selected will be rejected and returned with the filing fees.
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