04.15.15
This week USCIS announced that it has received more H-1B petitions than there are available H-1B visa numbers. The H-1B visa is available to an employer who is offering a foreign national a position that requires at least a bachelor's degree in a very specific field and the individual has such a degree or its equivalent. For most individuals who have not been in H-1B status before, an employer can only file an H-1B petition for such an individual where there are H-1B numbers available. Each year, there are 85,000 numbers available: 20,000 are reserved for those individuals with at least a U.S. Master's degree, 5,800 for citizens of Singapore or Chile, and the remainder to everyone else. Employer can file for H-1Bs as early as six months before each new federal fiscal year, or April 1 each year. As with previous years, USCIS received more petitions for H-1Bs than there were numbers available. Last year, USCIS reported receiving over 172,000 petitions. This year, within the first five filing days, USCIS received 233,000 petitions. The rules are that when more petitions than numbers available are received within the first five days of filing, all the petitions received within those five days are subject to a lottery. USCIS has also announced that it has completed its lottery and will be processing those petitions filed under the premium processing option starting April 27, 2015. Petitions processed under premium processing should receive responses within 15 days of April 27, that is, May 11. Given that USCIS received 233,000 petitions for 85,000 numbers, the chances are not very high that one's petition would be selected. Please feel free to contact Clark Lau LLC to discuss whether there are any other available options to you.