As discussed in prior posts, on January 30, 2019, USCIS announced a final rule regarding changes to the annual H-1B cap lottery system, requiring an electronic registration for each cap-subject petition. While the electronic registration requirement was suspended for the lottery in April 2019, USCIS is taking steps to implement it for the lottery in April 2020, including the collection of a $10 fee for each electronic registration submitted.
Now further implementation details have been released: USCIS announced on Friday, December 6, that electronic registration will be required for the upcoming filing season in April 2020, that the agency has “completed a successful pilot testing phase,” and that the initial registration period will run from March 1, 2020 to March 20, 2020. Following the registration period, USCIS states that the electronic selection process (a.k.a. “lottery”) will be run on those registrations. Then, selected petitions will presumably be eligible to submit full petitions for adjudication.
USCIS has indicated that more details and timelines will be posted to the federal register in upcoming weeks. We are monitoring developments and will post further information as it becomes available.
© Jewell Stewart & Pratt PC 2019