News Updates
Interim Regulation Issued on Cap-Subject H-1B Procedures
Today, March 24, 2008, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published the anticipated regulation regarding changes to the quota-subject H-1B process and procedures. While the regulation was anticipated, some of the changes outlined in it were not. Highlights:
1. 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 Master's 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.
2. The first 20,000 Master's cap-eligible cases received will be counted toward the Master's cap exemption. After the 20,000 exemptions have been exhausted, the remaining Master's 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. In this way, the Master's cap cases still have the advantage of essentially two bites at the apple.
3. The lottery period is extended from 2 days to 5. That is, cases that are received within the first 5 business days from the date the filing window opens on April 1st will be entered in the lottery. Specifically, cases received by 7:00 p.m. on Monday, April 7th will be entered in the lottery. Note that this may mean that even more applicants will be competing for the same number of visas. Cases received at USCIS on April 1st will have no advantage over cases received on April 7th.
4. USCIS will continue to accept letters from authorized officials of schools indicating that a student has completed the requirements for a degree and is merely awaiting official conferral of the degree . This is beneficial for those awaiting conferral of a U.S. graduate degree in order to be eligible to file under the Master's cap.
Legislative Updates
Since our update of March 17th, there have been no further developments on the legislative front regarding increasing the number of H-1B visas statutorily available each federal fiscal year.
Petitions Prepared (but not filed) in Duplicate
Separately, you may have noticed that we are now sending duplicate original documents for signature on nonimmigrant visa cases; that is, we are sending two sets of identical documents and asking that original signatures be provided on both sets. The reason for this is a change in the State Department's process for confirming approval of a petition when an application for a visa is made at a U.S. Consulate abroad.
As mentioned in a previous update, in January of this year the State Department implemented a new database called PIMS (Petition Information Management System). Even if an applicant is in possession of their original nonimmigrant approval notice (Form I-797) and a certified copy of the petition, the Consular Officer must first confirm approval of the petition via the PIMS database before they can issue the visa. The problem is that USCIS is only entering consular notification cases (generally, cases where the foreign national is abroad) into the PIMS database. Individuals in the U.S. (for example, individuals who filed for a change or extension of status) are experiencing delays at the Consulates while the Consular Officer seeks to obtain confirmation of the approval from USCIS, as the record is not coming up in PIMS. We were advised this problem had been fixed in mid-January, but the problem remains. Therefore, to avoid the risk of delays for your employees when they seek to obtain visa stamps, per USCIS' suggestion we will be filing all petitions in duplicate. This will allow USCIS to keep one petition and forward the other to the Kentucky Consular Center, which will scan the petition and approval into PIMS, making the record available to all U.S. Consulates worldwide.
Back to News Updates | 
