04.17.17
USCIS announced today that it received 199,000 H-1B petitions for Fiscal Year 2018. This is less than what was received last fiscal year, i.e., over 230,000. The number of visas available remains the same however. There are 65,000 visa numbers available for general H-1B petitions and 20,000 additional visas for those with advanced U.S. degrees.

USCIS reports that it ran a computer-generated random selection process on April 11, 2017. Over the next few weeks, USCIS will be generating receipts for those petitions chosen for processing. Our office has also been monitoring whether USCIS has cashed any of the checks for filing fees associated with each particular petition. We have noticed that more and more checks are being cleared, but we caution assuming that a petition has therefore been selected for processing until an actual receipt notice has been issued.

Please stay tuned for more updates. The above information has been provided for informational purposes only. Please contact Clark Lau LLC to see how this applies to your particular situation.