USCIS Completes H-1B Cap Lottery for FY2016

As previously reported, on April 7, 2015, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it had reached the congressionally mandated H-1B cap for fiscal year (FY) 2016. On April 13, USCIS used a computer-generated random selection process, or lottery, to select enough petitions to meet the 65,000 general-category cap and the 20,000 cap under the advanced degree exemption. USCIS has received nearly 233,000 H-1B petitions during the filing period, which began April 1, including petitions filed for the advanced degree exemption. USCIS will reject and return all unselected petitions with their filing fees, unless the petition is found to be a duplicate filing.

The agency conducted the selection process for the advanced degree exemption first. All unselected advanced degree petitions then became part of the random selection process for the 65,000 limit.

USCIS will begin premium processing for H-1B cap cases no later than May 11, 2015.

View this on our Immigration Blog.