USCIS Completes H-1B Lottery

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) completed the random lottery selection process April 14, 2008, for all H-1B petitions received April 1 through April 7. USCIS estimates that it received 163,000 petitions during this five-day filing period. Two random selection processes were actually conducted, first for petitions qualifying for the 20,000 U.S. advanced degree exemption, and second for the standard 65,000 cap. Any petitions eligible for, but not selected in, the advanced degree lottery were added in to the lottery for the 65,000 cap.

Petitioners whose H-1B petitions have been selected for adjudication should receive a receipt notice dated no later than June 2, 2008. Any petition not selected will be returned with the appropriate filing fees. The total adjudication process is expected to take eight to 10 weeks, but those cases filed using premium processing should be adjudicated within 15 days from April 14.

USCIS has "wait-listed" some H-1B petitions to potentially replace H-1B petitions selected in the lottery but ultimately denied, withdrawn, or otherwise found to be ineligible. USCIS will send a letter to the wait list petitioners informing them of their status. USCIS expects that it will either issue a receipt notice or return the petition with fees in six to eight weeks.

We will advise clients as soon as we know whether any H-1B petitions filed by our office have been assigned one of the available numbers by USCIS.