Immigration News
H-1B Cap Not Yet Reached
April 8, 2009
USCIS announced today that it did not receive enough H-1B nonimmigrant visa petitions subject to the fiscal year 2010 cap through 4/7/09, and therefore, it is still accepting new H-1B petitions.
This means that all cap cases that were filed through April 7th were accepted for processing and will not be subjected to a "lottery" process.
USCIS will continue to monitor the number of H-1B petitions received for both the 65,000 regular cap and the 20,000 U.S. master's degree or higher educational exemption cap. Once USCIS receives the necessary number of petitions to meet the respective caps, it will advise the public that, as of a certain date (the "final receipt date"), the respective H1B caps have been met. The final receipt date will be based on the date USCIS physically receives the petition, not the date that the petition is postmarked. The date or dates USCIS informs the public that the respective caps have been reached may differ from the actual final receipt date.
USCIS will conduct a "lottery" to choose the exact number of petitions required to reach the respective caps from the petitions received on the final receipt date.
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