USCIS Completes Inaugural H-1B Cap Electronic Pre-Registration Process and Now Accepting Petitions

Last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) completed the electronic pre-registration process for this year’s H-1B cap season, inaugurating a new system for selecting cap cases for review that the agency first announced in December 2018. As detailed in prior posts, The Department of Homeland Security Proposes New Pre-Registration Procedure and Alterations to Lottery Selection Process for H-1B Cap-Subject Petitions and DHS Publishes Final Rule Amending the H-1B Cap Filing Process, the new system for cap filings required employers to complete an online basic registration for each beneficiary for whom they hoped to submit a full H-1B filing. Since demand for the H-1B visa outweighs the 65,000 slots available through the H-1B cap system each year, USCIS then completed a lottery to select which of the pre-registered cases could move forward with submitting a full H-1B filing for review and approval. In prior years, USCIS completed the lottery after employers submitted full petitions. The new process sought to create a more streamlined process where employers would know which cases would be reviewed up front instead of having to draft full filings only to hear the case was not selected in the lottery for review.

The pre-registration period lasted from March 1 to March 20. USCIS then notified employers of case selection in the lottery by March 31. For those selected, USCIS started accepting full H-1B cap petitions on April 1, and the period for filing H-1B cap-subject petitions will be at least 90 days. In addition, there is a possibility that some cases not selected in the initial lottery could ultimately have the opportunity to file during this fiscal year. USCIS notes that submitted registrations will remain in consideration for selection until the end of the fiscal year in the event some employers decide not to file for selected beneficiaries, which would open up some slots.

On April 1, USCIS offered data on the registrations received. They indicate that almost 275,000 unique registrations were submitted during the initial registration period. In addition, approximately 46% of all registrations were for prospective beneficiaries with U.S. advanced degrees. There were more than 40,000 registration accounts created, and about 81% of submitted registrations were for potential beneficiaries from India (67.7%) and China (13.2%). While USCIS has heralded the inaugural pre-registration system as an overall success, there are reports that some registrations were improperly denied. To prohibit giving one individual a higher chance of being selected, duplicate entries are prohibited under the H-1B cap system. However, some employers and practitioners say their registrations were unduly denied because they were incorrectly flagged as duplicate entries in the system.