H-1B Visa Cap Reached for 2017 Fiscal Year
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) announcement on April 7, it had reached the congressionally mandated H-1B cap for 2017 fiscal year (FY). USCIS will first use a computer-generated process, which is also known as the lottery, to randomly choose among the petitions—65,000 visas for the general category and 20,000 for the advanced degree exemption. The lottery will be conducted first for the U.S. Master’s visa quota. For those unselected in the Master Caps, the applicants will be part of the general group lottery for the remaining 65,000 petitions. USCIS will reject and return filing fees to unselected cap-subject petitions which are not duplicate filings.
Until now, USCIS had not yet released the processing time period for the H-1B and the date of H-1B lottery for FY 2017. The U.S. government was believed to have received about 250,000 petitions for H-1B visa category for FY 2017. For fiscal year 2016, USCIS received about 233,000 petitions’ H-1B applications.
However, USCIS will continue to accept and process the following:
- petitions that are otherwise exempt from the cap;
- H1-B workers who have retained their cap numbers;
- extend the amount of time a current H-1B worker may remain in the United States;
- change the terms of employment for current H-1B workers;
- allow current H-1B workers to change employers; and
- allow current H-1B workers to work concurrently in a second H-1B position.