News Updates

USCIS Reaches FY 2009 H-1B Cap

U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today, April 8, 2008, that it has received more than enough H-1B petitions to meet both the Bachelor’s cap and the "Advanced Degree" (Master's or PhD from a U.S. university) cap for fiscal year 2009. 

USCIS will complete initial data entry for all filings received between April 1 and April 7, 2008, before conducting the random selection process (the lottery).  USCIS has not yet determined the date it will conduct the lottery due to the high volume of petitions received. 

Note that the first 20,000 Advanced Degree cap-eligible cases will be counted toward the Advanced Degree cap exemption.  After the 20,000 exemptions have been exhausted, the remaining Advanced Degree cap cases will be grouped with all other H-1B cap cases and may receive Bachelor's cap numbers under the lottery system until the 57,800 Bachelor's cap cases are exhausted. 

USCIS will issue Receipt Notices for petitions selected through the lottery for adjudication. 

USCIS will also reserve some petitions in the event that the initial cap count is inaccurate and more petitions may be adjudicated. 

USCIS will reject petitions and return filing fees for all cap-subject petitions not randomly selected in the lottery, unless petitions are found to be duplicates.  As provided in the March 24, 2008 regulation, USCIS will not permit duplicate filings by the same employer for the same individual -- even if one petition is submitted pursuant to the Bachelor's cap and the second petition is submitted pursuant to the Advanced Degree cap, and even if the petitions are for different jobs or different locations.  Any petition found to be a duplicate filing will be denied or revoked, without refund of filing fees.
 

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