The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) announced today that it has completed data entry for all cap-subject petitions in the computer generated random lottery process. This confirms that receipts have now been issued for all H-1Bs for both the regular and U.S. Master’s cap as of this date.
Moving forward, USCIS will begin returning all H-1B petitions that were not selected in the lottery.
We anticipate that any remaining cases selected in the lottery will likely have receipts received via postal mail later this week or next week.
For those cases that were not selected, USCIS has not stated a timeframe for returning these petitions. If the agency follows a similar timeline as prior years, rejected petitions not selected in the lottery are likely to be issued and mailed in the next few weeks.
Additionally, USCIS noted that it is transferring some H-1B cap subject petitions from the Vermont Service Center to the California Service Center to balance the distribution of cap cases. Any transferred cases will receive notification in the mail with directions to send all future correspondence to that Service Center.
Also, USCIS continues the suspension of Premium Processing service for H-1B cap-subject petitions. This suspension does not impact any other type of H-1B visa petition filing.
Because USCIS received more H-1B cap-subject petitions than the available number of H-1B visas, the agency used a computer-generated random selection process, known as the “H-1B lottery”, to determine which petitions out of the total number received will be processed under the numerical limits.
We are notifying our clients individually as receipts are received and will do so for rejected petitions being received as well.
Jackson & Hertogs will continue to monitor for updates on the FY 2019 H-1B cap. For more information on the H-1B visa, please visit our guides at this link. For more information on the H-1B cap for Fiscal Year 2019, please click here.
