Update on H-1B Cap: U.S. Masters H-1B Numbers Still Available

As we notified our clients last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that it has received enough H-1B petitions as of April 3rd to completely deplete all 58,200 H-1B visas available for FY 2008, which begins on October 1, 2007.

In addition to the 58,200 H-1B visas available, an additional 20,000 H-1B visas are available to those individuals possessing at least a master's degree (or higher) from a U.S. college or university. USCIS announced today that a total of 12,989 cases qualifying for these H-1B visas were received on April 2nd and 3rd. Therefore, USCIS has affirmatively declared that the cap on these U.S. master's degree H-1B cases remains open, and employers may continue to file petitions fitting this criteria until the 20,000 cap is reached.

Additionally, USCIS has announced that 119,193 of the H-1B petitions received on April 2nd and April 3rd are subject to the H-1B cap for FY 2008. As USCIS has made clear in previous updates, these petitions will be subjected to a computer-generated random-selection lottery. No update has been posted as to when and how that lottery will be conducted.

USCIS has made it clear that those H-1B cases filed on April 2nd and 3rd using Premium Processing will not...