On July 13, 2006, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that as of July 11, 2006, they had received 15,208 H-1B petitions eligible for the 20,000 H-1B petitions for Fiscal Year 2007 that are reserved for individuals who hold Masters degrees (or other advanced degrees) from a U.S. university or college.  >USCIS further reports that in addition to these H-1B petitions that have been issued receipts, as of July 11, 2006, USCIS had approximately 800 H-1B petitions requesting the advanced degree exception awaiting data entry, bringing the true cap count to approximately 16,008.  This means that less than 4,000 H-1Bs remain available under the advanced degree exception.  You can view the cap count here:  http://uscis.gov/graphics/services/tempbenefits/cap.htm. 

Based on the reported usage of H-1B numbers, it is likely that the advanced degree H-1B cap will be reached within the next 1-2 weeks.  There will likely be no advance notice when the advanced degree H-1B cap is reached, so employers should act quickly to secure these H-1Bs while they remain available.

Jackson & Hertogs advises employers to immediately file H-1B petitions for any foreign workers with U.S. advanced degrees who do not have employment authorization beyond October 1, 2007.  The only exception would be for those foreign hires who already hold H-1B status and have already been counted against the H-1B cap.  Note that those in H-1B status working for universities or non-profit research facilities have likely not had their H-1B visas counted against the cap, and thus likely remain subject to the H-1B cap if they wish to change to an employer who is subject to the cap (i.e., if an individual moves from a cap exempt employer to a cap subject employer, the individual would be cap subject even if s/he is already "in" H-1B status).  Once this fiscal year's H-1B cap is reached, new H-1B petitions will not be accepted by the USCIS until April 1, 2007, and the earliest start date that will be available on those petitions will be October 1, 2007.

If you believe that you have any employees or would-be employees who qualify for the H-1B advanced degree exemption for FY2007, please contact our office immediately.

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