H-1B Cap

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In 2019, the large policy and enforcement shifts signposted in 2017 and 2018 continued to play out with stricter immigration enforcement across the board. While we don’t expect to see seismic shifts in the coming year, there are a few issues to watch for in 2020.

(1) H-1B “Specialty Occupation” Definition Change Likely to Stall in Court

USCIS has indicated it will be announcing an official change to the definition of “specialty occupation.” While we have already seen a detrimental shift in the H-1B adjudication process, this would be an official regulatory change. We expect that any attempt to re-interpret the H-1B statute as narrowly as possible will face a lengthy court battle.…

Continue Reading The Year Ahead: 10 Things to Watch for in US Immigration

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has just announced that it has completed what is commonly known as the “master’s cap” H-1B lottery.  The agency confirmed, as was widely anticipated, that sufficient petitions were received during the first five business days of April 2019 to satisfy this additional pool of 20,000 H-1B numbers, which are set…

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has reported receiving enough petitions during the first five business days of April 2019 to meet the congressionally mandated 65,000 H-1B regular cap for fiscal year 2020.  USCIS will next determine if it has received enough petitions to meet the 20,000 U.S. advanced degree exemption or “master’s cap.”

This year,…

After weeks of anxious speculation by immigration attorneys and their clients, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) finally announced their premium processing strategy for this year’s H-1B cap season, and it’s … complicated:

  • H-1B cap petitions requesting a change of status may request premium processing when the case is initially filed during the first

…

The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) announced today that the final rule amending DHS regulations governing H-1B cap-subject petitions will be published in the Federal Register on January 31, 2019, and will become effective on April 1, 2019.

The new rule implements the electronic registration requirement, but suspends it for the FY2020 H-1B cap season.…

An H-1B cap registration proposal has been in the works since 2011, but it may have been President Trump’s Buy American and Hire American (“BAHA”) executive order that finally created the right climate to push the proposal as far as it has now come. In its proposed rule, published in the Federal Register on December 3, 2018…
Continue Reading What Employers Should Know About the New H-1B Cap Registration Process

U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (“USCIS”) announced today that it has now completed returning all petitions that were not selected in the Fiscal Year 2019 H-1B lottery.  Employers who filed petitions should now have received either a Form I-797 receipt notice with assigned receipt number, or the original rejected petition including filing fees.  USCIS will…

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced yesterday that it has completed the data entry for all H-1B cap petitions selected in the FY2019 lottery held in April.   Because receipts are mailed on a rolling basis as the data entry for each selected petition is completed, it is still possible that additional receipts for …

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) has reported receiving 190,098 cap subject H-1B petitions during the first five business days of April 2018, more than twice the number mandated by Congress’ cap of 65,000 under the regular H-1B cap and 20,000 under the advanced degree cap for each fiscal year.

On April 11,…

March 2017 brought us a surprising suspension of the Premium Processing option for all H-1B petitions received by the USCIS on or after Monday, April 3, 2017, which led to an overwhelming number of H-1B extension filings in a short period of time.  The USCIS was unable to process most of the cases within the…